


Many Ways

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Ready For The Siege [23]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Character Death Fix, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Helheimr | Hel (Realm), Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Original Character(s), Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:13:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Hel can give gifts if she wants to. That doesn't mean that her gifts don't come with strings attached, or set off a whole other chain of events. She wouldn't have it any other way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dancing With Ghosts

Life was misery. And emptiness. An empty ache that would never, ever fill.

And Loki deserved every last second of it.

He didn't light the scrolls and books on fire in his suite. Most were precious, one of a kind, and there was no way to replace his collection with new copies now that he was barred from Asgard. Oh, Wanda or Frigga could replace them, probably, but neither knew what was in his personal collection, and it would be frightfully embarrassing and pathetic to admit he was this distraught over the death of a mortal.

Even if that mortal was Natasha Romanoff.

The empty front room was subject to blasts of ice and bolts of blue energy. Even seeing that bright color incensed him; the Tesseract had sunk its claws deeper into him than he wanted to admit, and the shimmering gold of the _seidr_ was all but invisible beneath the blue. It tainted him, taunted him, and he loathed its legacy.

All he could do was scream and blast away at the room as if it could siphon off some of the grief and misery he felt. Even if he deserved it, it didn't mean that he wanted it, didn't mean that he wished he could pour it out of his body and let it pool and fester somewhere else. He kicked at the walls or pounded them with his fists, but they were reinforced and had no give, just as the stone and gold halls in Asgard wouldn't have.

Loki shouted in every language he knew, and was tempted to rend apart space and time and walk along Yggdrasil. If he could lose himself there, maybe fall into the Void, maybe walk backward in time as Amora obviously had... He could do it, if he could bring himself to try. He could find the cage of dragon bones and take Amora's rings of power, those deadly trinkets that would warp him from the inside out. Even one of them might give him enough power to undo Natasha's fate, could bring her back to life and safely out of Hel's clutches. She would be safe, she would love him, he wouldn't be so dreadfully alone.

But he deserved that. He _deserved_ every drop of misery this was eking out of him.

James visited a week after the funeral, dark circles under his eyes, clothes rumpled, a bottle of vodka in his flesh hand. The metal one was fisted tightly at his side. "I can't sleep," he had said, voice empty and hollow.

Because Loki wasn't the only one grieving as badly. Natasha had been his entire world, too.

Loki stepped aside and let James into the empty sitting room. There was the office beyond, unfit for company, the bathroom and the small bedroom he didn't use. The bedroom was an afterthought, really, mostly because Natasha thought it odd he used his bedroom as an office and didn't sleep. But why should he have a bedroom if he stayed in her suite or the apartment in Astoria? His suite in the Tower was the place to retreat, study, or lick his wounds, that was all. It didn't mean anything to him.

He conjured a couch like Natasha's, cool white leather and a solid frame to it for James to collapse heavily into. "I can't get drunk," he said, offering the vodka bottle to Loki. "God knows I'm fucking trying, but the serum won't let me get drunk."

"Would Asgardian fare work?"

"Don't know, haven't tried," James replied morosely.

Pulling apart reality, he opened up a portal to one of his hideaways on Yggdrasil that he had all but abandoned years ago. It didn't matter if Selene could track it, if she could sense magic through portals this way. Let her come. Let her devour his essence and drink up his magic, it would hurt less than this.

James stared blankly at the appearance of the portal, not believing what he was seeing. Loki ignored that and found a cask of Asgardian ale. "Not as good as harder liquors or even wine, but I suppose this will have to do," he grumbled. The idea of being drunk enough not to feel loss was a fairly good one at the moment.

Somehow, they traded stories about Natasha and how she kept them from fucking up their lives, and how strong she was, even when she felt she wasn't. She knew her worth in certain respects, and certainly wouldn't allow anyone to tear her down in ways she wouldn't. Someone else calling her a liar never registered as an insult, as it was true enough. It was only an insult when she was being sincere and helpful.

"I miss her." James looked morosely at the Asgardian ale, which was giving him a little buzz and slurred his speech somewhat. Loki could feel the soft blur around reality's edges, the dizziness that set in when he nodded. "I feel like the heart I just found got ripped out of my chest. Getting this damn thing," he said, lifting his left arm, "hurt less."

Loki knew what he meant, and thought about saying _I am nothing without her,_ but that would reveal too much, even with James knowing far too much already for his liking.

"I'm nothing without her," James said, beginning to cry. They were ugly, wracking sobs, tears tracking down his face. He covered his face in his hands, and Loki's mouth twisted in distaste at the display. It was one thing to cry alone, but in public?

This wasn't exactly public, though. It probably just meant James trusted him that much.

Feeling awkward and like a heel, Loki put an arm around James' shoulders. He didn't say anything stupid like "It's all right," because it wasn't, or "You'll be all right," because they both knew it would be a lie. He simply stayed still, leaning into him on the couch, ignoring the way the metal shoulder dug into his ribs.

Curling around the other man, Loki thought of something to say that wouldn't be awful or condescending and couldn't find anything to say. "I wish... I wish I knew what to tell you," he said finally, his own voice raw as if he was the one sobbing.

"I can almost... It's stupid, I know it is. But her room still smells like her. Her clothes are in the closet. I keep folding her shirts in the drawers because it was the last thing she had me do for her before she ran out to meet you. I just... I keep pretending she's in Astoria with you. Or right now, I'm fooling myself into thinking she'll stroll right in and tell us to do something, just because she can. Just because she thinks it'll be a laugh."

Natasha liked pulling strings and pushing buttons, liked showing people she had a measure of control. She had information about everyone, sometimes without even realizing she was collecting it and storing it away.

"Sounds like her," Loki agreed hoarsely.

Later, Loki couldn't remember who started it. The next thing he knew, he and James were kissing, tongues in each others' mouths. The room was spinning from the ale, and he dug his fingers into James' shoulders as if it would help him make sense of this loss. James' eyes were a little glassy from the ale, and when he broke the kiss to breathe, he nuzzled Loki's jaw, sucked at his throat and palmed Loki's crotch. It was a move that reminded him of Natasha, making his breath catch. He must have sobbed her name, not understanding what the hell was happening, and James clearly said "You can pretend I'm her" before sliding off the couch and falling to his knees in front of Loki.

Any reply got swallowed up in a desperate groan as James took his cock into his mouth and started sucking hard, not even trying to ease into it. Loki rested his shaking hands on James' head, letting his eyes fall shut. It wasn't James here, it was Natasha. She was sucking on him hard, drawing his cock erect enough for her to play with, fingers brushing against his thighs as a subtle way to tease him, more sensation, more, and he was spilling into James' mouth too soon, embarrassingly soon. But James didn't seem to care, and simply swallowed him down and kept right on going, making Loki choke out some fractured syllables that might have been words in a language neither understood.

Natasha would look up at him, green eyes half hidden by her lashes and sweep of bright red hair, her lips drawn in a smile around his cock, knowing full well what the sight of this would do to him. She would laugh, the rumble reverberating along his cock, and then she would shift position to take him further into her mouth, the head brushing against her soft palate. She could relax her throat, take him in as deep as she could, allow him to shoot directly down if she had her lips all the way down to the root. Loki never wanted to think of how she had gotten talented at this, how her body hadn't been her own, how she had been used in all sorts of ways.

James didn't seem to care what was happening, and pulled his mouth away with a soft, wet popping sound just as Loki got painfully hard again. He shifted to his hands and knees, eyes downcast. "All you need is lube," he said. At Loki's choking sound, his eyes swept up, and Loki could see the pain in them. "It'll be like she's here. It's her show, you know. It always was, always will be. Natalia... She'd laugh at us so hard if she was here."

But she wasn't, never would be again, and anger burned through Loki as well as the grief. It was a stupid idea, but a wisp of magic coated Loki's cock and fingers with lube, and he slicked James' ass generously before sliding his cock inside. By the Tree, he was as tight as Natasha would be, clenching down around him. Loki grasped his hips and fucked into him, eyes closed and teeth grit. This was sensation burning along his spine, a desperate pleasure building behind his eyes and low in his groin. Natasha would laugh as she bent down to lick the tears from his face, her clever fingers brushing down his neck and sliding across his chest. "Don't tell me you miss me," she would scoff. "Don't say you _need_ me."

He needed her, he did, he loved her, he wanted her, he _needed_ her.

Loki thrust forward with desperate gasps and James pushed back into him with harsh guttural groans. It was only pleasure and release, a mindless fucking. Maybe James was imagining Natasha with her strap on fucking into him, her hands tight on his hips and giving him this pleasure at a punishing pace. Loki certainly thought of Natasha, her tight body and smirking mouth, glittering eyes and smooth, pale skin. He thought of her sprawled on her bed beneath him, hovering over him, kneeling or standing or crawling or posing. She was a living work of art, a goddess in her own right.

And even coming inside her lover didn't erase her death.

Neither said much afterward, and Loki felt awkward. Was it appropriate to thank him for letting Loki fuck him? Was it too much to hold him close and lie, saying it got better with time? Was there anything he could do without feeling useless or helpless?

So the moment passed and Loki remained silent, sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, guilt and grief and recriminations in his heart. James had been drunk, right? _He_ wasn't entirely sober either. Was this what James had really wanted? Or what he thought Loki wanted him to offer? When Loki thought to ask, the soldier had already slipped out of his suite, leaving behind the half empty bottle of vodka beside the cask of ale. Loki finished it, but the burn of alcohol did little to ease the ache inside his chest.

Look at how worthless he was. Look at how awful.

Days slid into each other, and James hadn't returned. Did he hate Loki for the incident? Did he think Loki plied him with drink, raped him, took his offer past its intent? What did he mean by it, anyway? Why hadn't he said anything about it afterward? Why had he left without a word? Why hadn't he returned?

He must have hated Loki. He must have _loathed_ Loki. He must be plotting his downfall, trying to come up with ways to kill the Asgardian. Odin would finally see Loki die.

Loki screamed in pure fury and made sure the suite was locked down tight and cut off from Jarvis' access. He could have gone to one of his hideaways along Yggdrasil, but that would have taken effort, and his entire sense of self was shaken.

He'd driven away his last ally in this realm, and he was truly alone.

What day was it? Surely it was months or years since her murder. Or had time stood still and it was merely the day before? He couldn't remember. Other than James, he refused to speak with anyone in the Tower. He had nothing and no one, no one cared, no one really wanted him, he simply had nowhere else to go.

He was alone and miserable, and he deserved every awful moment of it.

Natasha was gone. He was empty, utterly empty, and there was no way he could fill the gaping wound that her death had caused. He was nothing now, nothing, useless and broken and held together with fraying wire and string. His life was worthless. _He_ was worthless. He should have died of exposure as an infant, and at least Natasha would be whole, likely still alive without his interference. Selene only came to her because of the magic bound into her bones, the blasted magic he had given to her repeatedly. She couldn't even use it! She had no sense of the _seidr,_ couldn't perceive it or wield it. But still she died. He had been arrogant, thinking he could choose the shape of her _spá_ and get away with it.

No one taunted the Norns and got away with it.

But maybe if he taunted them enough, they _would_ come for him. He could find those rings and take up their power. Then he could find Yggdrasil, moving from roots to the tip of the holy Tree, and he could comb through the threads of the _spá_ until he found the one that he wanted. He could find Natasha again, skin soft and sleek, hair long and curling. She would smile when she saw him, light up with joy and reach for him. She would kiss his face, her hands cradling his jaw and keeping him close. She would curl up around him, draw him down to a shared marital bed. Their child would be asleep in its crib, with a SHIELD approved babysitter, or with another Avenger that wanted to play the role of aunt or uncle.

 _Their child._ By Tree, how that thought _hurt._ He was unfit as a father as he was, his temperament completely and wholly unsuited. There was no kindness in him, no caring that an infant would need. How could he nurture a small, weak, helpless thing? How could he shelter it from cold and heat, rage and pain? He could barely care for his own emotional needs, and even then he sometimes thought he failed.

But he wanted her so badly. Natasha, Natasha, Natasha, how his world spun unchecked without her, dizzying depths of cruelty unleashed upon his own soul, his own skin.

He was useless. Useless, useless, useless.

Dreaming of Natasha was exquisite agony. Her full lips tilted into a wry smirk, green eyes vivid and alive, shining with humor. Red hair spilled across the white chenille comforter on her bed, ringlets and waves begging to be stroked. Arms spread wide, breasts bared for his hands to touch or mouth to suckle. Then he could lick his way down to the cleft between her legs, longing and want letting her grow damp before he even touched his lips to her. Ah, the taste of that softness, a nectar he couldn't replicate with spells. His imagination paled in comparison to the real thing, and he was broken, wasted, lonely.

Loki was nothing. Utterly and completely _nothing._

Ice and cold and energy bleeding out from his useless, worthless hands, and he might as well just shred them, break them, cut himself open. She was gone, she would never come back. It was worse than her visit to Asgard, because at least as Ambassador, she could come back. She was dead, dead, dead, and he was worthless, a vile creature not worthy of her, not worthy of anything, and he really should have known better when he tried to pick up Mjolnir all those years ago, it knew he was insufferable. It knew he should have died.

She had sacrificed herself again, probably thinking he could save her precious realm. But he was nobody, nothing, couldn't save himself let alone a realm. Loki was horrid and horrible, and he should have known better than to think he could earn her trust or love.

He gouged into his arms with his nails, growling when his skin refused to break. The stupid fucking skin should have split, his blood should have spilt across the floor. It was the only good use out of him, wasn't it?

Tools. He had blades and hammers, and he could lever them into doing serious damage to his body. His bones would break, his skin would finally shed brilliant red blood. His flesh could crawl right off his bones, he would be a mass of ooze and organs. He could do it, he could break himself down to the nothing that he was.

Because Natasha was gone, he couldn't save her, he couldn't bring her back. The only reason why any of them survived that night was because Selene had left. He would never have been able to destroy her, as much as he wanted to.

He was _nothing_ in the face of her. Even Thanos couldn't compare to her might.

There was a whining sound behind him, metal on metal, and he whirled around with a snarl. He didn't understand it at first—why were there glowing sparks in the door? But then he realized that someone was cutting through the door, and the metal wasn't good enough to keep them out. It had to be Tony Stark. Who else would have a blowtorch to cut apart the door?

 _"Go away!"_ he screamed, voice breaking, his throat hoarse as if he had ruptured something in his throat. He was swallowing knives, he was in pain, and it was what he deserved for all of his awful history, the devastation he had brought to this realm. He wasn't _good,_ he couldn't save this place, he couldn't honor her memory.

Loki was a failure, an utter and complete failure.

The blowtorch continued to cut, and he contemplated a blasting spell to stop it. But that would harm whoever was on the other side, and Natasha cared about the fools in this tower. These fools were her family, the ones she cherished. She was gone, and now they were the only ones to carry on her memory, her legacy.

Crashing to his knees, Loki wrapped his arms around himself and wailed, temperature dropping as he lost control.

Apparently, that made it easier for the door to be cut open. Sure enough, there was Tony holding the blowtorch. But there was Sam and Steve and Clint and James and even Maria Hill on the other side of it, looking into the room in concern. What had he done to warrant that? Didn't they realize how terrible he was? That he wasn't worth their effort? Didn't James hate him? He had defiled the man, tainted him, ruined him. James was _argr_ now, why didn't he care about that? Loki was poison, destroying everything he touched, everything he thought he could save. He ruined everything, rage leaving nothing but destruction in his wake, a devastated mess for others to salvage and repair.

"I thought so," Clint was saying, starting to shiver. "Shit, turn up the thermostat in there."

"All environmental controls in there are offline. And it's just that one room," Tony announced.

Squaring her shoulders, Maria stepped into the room. She had a no nonsense expression on her face despite the terrible cold, and Loki wanted to wail louder. By the Tree, it reminded him too much of Natasha, of her hands on him, holding him, binding him. She was the one that could rein him in, he didn't know how to do it for himself anymore. He was out of control, he knew that, he couldn't function anymore, he couldn't live like this, he couldn't survive—

"Get on your feet," Maria barked. He blinked at her, not understanding, and she had to snarl _"On your feet!"_ for him to understand it.

"She's gone," he said, his voice cracking.

"Other magicians are dying."

"Selene will do it. She'll take them all, then she'll destroy this realm like she's done to so many others already," Loki moaned.

"So stop Selene from killing anyone else."

"I can't," Loki began, shivers wracking his body. "I can't, I can't, I can't, I—"

"Then get her back," Maria snapped. "Surely you can do that with your magic?"

Loki's mouth snapped shut abruptly. "Oh."

"Well?" Maria gave him an expectant look, arms crossed beneath her breasts in an authoritative posture. "What are you waiting for?"

Oh yes, something in Loki responded to that, and his body uncurled. Reality split sideways beside him, and then he stepped _between_ to go to Helheim.

***

Wanda sat crosslegged in Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. When Loki had gone off the deep end, she had felt at a loss herself and hadn't known where else to go. This hadn't been the first death she'd witnessed, but seeing Natasha's life force be drawn up and out of her, the anchors of her _spá_ shredded and severed in front of her had been horrific. Plus, she had known exactly why Natasha would do such a thing. She wasn't a magic user. Spells had been laid into her body, her _spá_ fortified and rewoven in spots, but ultimately she was a fighter. She was a brilliant spy and strategist. Selene had come to them because of the summoning and entrapment spells, but she had blasted through the wards as if they had been tissue paper. Wanda had heard Natasha asking about the plan, and had herself wondered how magic would trap a creature that could absorb magic. But she was the newbie, the student, the one that the older practitioners treated like an idiot.

So Natasha was dead, her life thrown away to preserve theirs.

She felt almost responsible, even though logically, she wasn't. It was stupid, Wanda hadn't been the one to take apart her lifeline or harm her. But Wanda had invited Natasha to come with them, and she wouldn't have been there if not for her. Wanda didn't know how to make up for that; there was no way she could have even begun to battle Selene, and this was not going to be a question of out-magicking her. She was old, older than old, prior to the Hyborian Age, before magic had even been codified and understood. Not that it was any better understood now, but people were trying.

The patterns in Selene's _spá_ had been very clear. Lifelines and odd magical patterns had been woven together in odd ways, more like a tapestry than a lifeline. Selene would have died otherwise, her body consuming itself until there was nothing left. Wanda had been able to read that tapestry thanks to her studies on Asgard. She could see that she had killed her mother in her birthing, the poor woman barely able to sustain the pregnancy in the first place. Rather than mother's milk, the baby had been fed in lives, one after another, successively sacrificed as if it was her due. She hadn't known any different, and the magic allowed her to move through time and space until she reached the Void. From there, the pull of magic had drawn her out, and then she began the systematic destruction of countless worlds to feed herself.

Though she probably should have, she couldn't hate Selene.

Wanda didn't feel peaceful or protected in the Sanctum, though Dr. Strange had said she should have. He and Marissa talked in low tones, though she could peer through the space between them and read the _spá_ as it shifted shape between them. There was a connection there, though he wasn't entirely aware of it. Likely it had something to do with the three lifetimes that Marissa carried, but Wanda wasn't about to pry. It wasn't her business.

Instead, she peered inward and took in the sight of her own _spá._ It shifted shape with various major life events, the largest of which had been the Baron's acquisition of her and her brother when she was ten. A chill rolled through her as she took in that particular knot, an ugly, gnarled thing that looked as though only a sharp knife could take it apart. Did she really want to know what had happened to her as a child? Did she really want to see the parts of her history that the Baron had taken great pains to erase?

Yes. No. _Yes._

Marya and Django Maximoff lived in Sokovia, its capitol nestled near Wundagore Mountain. There were two older children, twins Ana and Mateo, that had died of some kind of respiratory illness when Wanda and Pietro were toddlers. It had broken Marya's heart, and she had been despondent for months. Django lost his job when he stayed home with her and the younger set of twins, and was then forced to try stealing food to help his family survive.

After one close call too many, when the twins were seven, Marya took Django aside after they went to bed. The twins shared a bed in the tiny bedroom; Marya and Django shared the pull out couch in the living room. "You can't keep doing this," she pleaded, sounding near tears. "They're just looking for an excuse to put you away. They _want_ to lock you up, never let you out, call us filthy Roma..."

Django looked at her with his lips pressed tightly together. "You think I'm not good at what I do? I would take something where I would get caught?"

Sighing as she shook her head. "Django, that time we had the border... The man that was avoiding the conscription, do you remember? The three of us together after Ana and Mateo went to sleep?" He looked at her warily as he nodded. "The timing is close enough to the twins that if we find him, say they're his, he would have to give us money."

This made Django furious. "You would do this?" He shot to his feet. "You would shame me? My children not my own? How long have you nursed this evil inside you, woman?"

She made a hissing noise and got to her feet as well. "They're yours, Django. But if we say they're his, he would have to support them. Support _us._ You wouldn't have to steal so much, you're less likely to get caught and imprisoned. How would I survive without you, my love? How would all of us survive? We _need_ you!"

"And did you think that he might want to take them as his?"

Marya paled, breath catching in her throat. Obviously, she hadn't.

"I can care for my family, Marya. We may have been cast out, but we are still Roma." He clasped her face in his hands as the tears spilled down her cheeks. "You cast your spells, do the cards. I will do what I can. I am careful, my darling. I know what's at stake the same as you."

The twins never knew of these concerns. They knew they were poor, that they had to study hard so that no one would ever doubt they were intelligent because of their background. Their heritage forever made them outcasts, so they were often their own playmates, whispering to each other in the dialect the Maximoff family spoke at home alongside Sokovian. Wanda knew certain things about her parents that other children didn't; her grandparents on both sides had opposed the union, and had been upset that fourteen year old Marya hadn't cried rape when Django got her pregnant. They hadn't specified that she had been pregnant with Ana and Mateo, not with Wanda and Pietro, but eight or nine year old Wanda hadn't figured that part out. She had only known that she didn't have grandparents like other children did, that it was just the four of them against the rest of the city. And if she and her brother pinched a penny candy at the store or he quickly slid a comic book into his sleeve before anyone could see, well, other children did that, too. For those children, it was a lark. For them, something close to a necessity.

But then came the inevitable day that Django couldn't get away fast enough. He had been unlucky enough to steal from Baron von Strucker, and the Baron had his men follow Django home. They broke into the house, beat him to death, raped Marya before slitting her throat and stole the twins for the Baron's experiments. The twins screamed and fought them every step of the way, until they were strapped down into a strange machine so that their memories were erased. No more family, no more neighborhood, no more school. All that was left was the knowledge they had to work for the Baron's good favor, and it was two weeks before their tenth birthday. The special day had been marked by the first of the experiments, poisons flowing through their veins and making them scream or beg for mercy.

Marissa approached Wanda, concern etched into her features at the sight of tears running down her cheeks. "As much as I know this is upsetting, we can't grieve yet."

It had been weeks since Natasha's death. Wanda hadn't gone to the funeral, hadn't been back to the Tower, hadn't reached out to any of the Avengers. Wanda had remained in the Sanctum Sanctorum, numb and unsure as Marissa and Strange conversed. She fixed Marissa with a bleary eyed stare, absently wondering if she should return to Asgard. Pietro would want the memories she recovered, right? He would want to know of their parents, their siblings.

"Wanda, the containment spells all over the world have failed. The covens are still recovering, some may never regain their full potential. The drain was too much for them to handle."

Old biddies. Cruel and selfish. Wanda felt no pity.

"This includes some of the facilities for SHIELD. They lost many prisoners with powers or odd abilities, and they're loose in the world. Even if they're as easily visible as that purple-skinned man, they're still dangerous."

Wanda remembered him and nodded. "I changed him. I altered his _spá,_ he can't erase memories any longer."

"Are you sure? That's magic, Wanda," Marissa reminded her gently. "Magic is failing."

Loki was useless in his grief, he couldn't help. Wanda was sure his magic hadn't failed.

"Stephen and I will have to try resurrecting the covens and reinforcing spells. SHIELD sent Loki on some mission, but he's a mess, Agent Hill told me. We need you, Wanda."

"I'm just a student."

"Of some of the greatest practitioners of all time. You are stronger than some coven members. The world needs you to help save it."

Wanda thought of Clint's words when she had first been given a place at the Tower. "Just play to your strengths, kiddo. There are some things we do really well. Some things," he'd began, tapping his hearing aid, "not so much. Just do what you can, when you can."

"What do I need to do?" she asked, taking a deep breath.

Marissa gave her a relieved smile and began to speak.

***

Carol Danvers sat alone in her apartment still in full dress uniform. With the fall of several high profile magic prisons, she had put in for a transfer to help recover the inmates. SHIELD alone wouldn't be able to retrieve them, and some of the prisoners had been caught by the US military.

Denied.

Rhodey understood her frustration, but he was being tapped as War Machine to help with the recovery efforts. As fantastic a pilot as she was, the Air Force didn't feel it was their place to recover criminals, powered or not.

Inside, she seethed. She could help, even if her superior officers didn't know it. There had never been a question about revealing herself to Rhodey, but her superiors? Oh, no. they wouldn't understand and would have wanted to exploit her power somehow.

It had been an accident that she found the downed aircraft as not anyone else. The occupant of the odd craft clearly hadn't been human; Mar-Vell had his communicator on broad translation frequencies, and begged her not to hurt him. He had seen too many movies when Earth's transmissions had been tapped, and Army labs never got a good rep in them. Mar-Vell was one of the White Kree, a result of interbreeding between the normally blue-skinned Kree people and humans millennia ago in an effort to diversify the gene pool on their home planet. Humanity was known for its genetic potential, particularly for psionics, which led to various experiments on the planet and the interbreeding program. Mar-Vell as a result resembled a tall, muscularly built blond Caucasian man. He was a pilot, an explorer, and had disobeyed orders to visit Earth in a clandestine manner. Carol certainly had been able to sympathize.

The problem was, she had a temper, flight skill and pretty good intelligence. What she didn't have was medical care background beyond basic first aid, and Mar-Vell's injuries were far beyond her pathetic ability even if he had been human. She apologized for that, for not being able to do anything but sit and talk with him when he was clearly dying.

He had smiled warmly at her despite his obvious pain. "We are alike, are we not? For I skipped medical training, too," he laughed. "It didn't seem as important as the navigation course."

Carol held his hand tightly in both of hers. "I'm still sorry."

His smile shifted somewhat. "I can give you a gift, one that will keep a part of me alive. If you agree to it."

"I guess," she had replied with a shrug, sure it would be a picture or tchotchke of some kind.

Instead, power flooded through her. Cosmic power, pouring into every fiber, every nerve. Strength and flight, a kind of invulnerability to her skin, the ability to use and understand his alien technology.

And when it was over, Mar-Vell laid dead in her arms.

She had disposed of the body and craft on her own after salvaging what she could. Going to Rhodey was a foregone conclusion; he knew Tony Stark, was War Machine, and was her boyfriend besides. He had taken her acquisition of power in stride, though he'd joked about her inability to share powers with him. Rhodey had gathered her up in his arms, kissed her soundly, and told her she tasted the same. "Flier or not, you're still Carol Danvers. And if it's my job to drag you back down to earth now and again like I do for Tony, I'm cool with that."

Grinning, she kissed him and used a touch of her extra strength to push him onto his back. Rhodey had looked intrigued at the prospect, especially as she purred "Very good."

But her secret was safe between the two of them; even Tony Stark didn't know. Unfortunately, that also meant she had no argument for the brass as to why she would be a better candidate than the SHIELD liaison to look for powered criminals. Not that they _really_ wanted to do it, but the liaison at least was a show for SHIELD. The brass made noises about a registry of some kind, like SHIELD's watch list, but no one wanted the actual job of creating and maintaining the list, or trying to enforce registrations.

It wasn't a surprise when Rhodey showed up at her apartment. He was out of his dress uniform and sat down beside her on the couch. "I was this close," he said, holding his fingers an inch apart, "to resigning my commission today," he admitted.

"Wait, they'd turned you down, too?"

"They're calling it a SHIELD fuckup," he said, nodding. "They want nothing to do with it. If a cleanup and extraction can get these people back, they don't want to be blamed for it."

"Jesus. Politics over safety."

"Yeah," Rhodey agreed. "I managed to keep my job, but I'm not sure how much I want it anymore, to be honest."

"Do we quit together, then?" Carol asked.

"There's weird magical mumbo-jumbo shit going down," Rhodey sighed, sliding his hand across hers and then linking their fingers together. "How can we fight against that?"

Carol cradled his cheek with her other hand. "You can't."

Rhodey gave her a crooked smile. "Rub it in, why don't ya?" he teased.

"But I can't let anyone know, or else they'll dissect me."

"This is a world of superheroes now, Corporal," Rhodey pointed out.

Pausing, Carol cocked her head to look at him. "Superhero, huh?"

"You're my hero. And like a living comic book."

Super strength and the ability to fly. Why not?

"So. I'd need a code name. Like you have War Machine. Maybe to memorialize Mar-Vell."

"You're a marvel, all right," Rhodey leered playfully.

"Marvel." Carol paused. "Captain Marvel."

"Captain?" he asked, eyebrow quirked.

"They wouldn't think of me since the rank is different," Carol reasoned.

Rhodey grinned. "Sounds good to me. Now you just need a suit to match."

"I'm not letting everything hang out."

"No keyhole cleavage? No asscheek baring leotard and tights?" Carol poked him in the gut, making him laugh. "Okay, okay. I guess I'm the only one that gets to see that. Fine by me."

Carol snorted. "What do I see in you again?"

"I'm charming, handsome, witty and pilot War Machine. And I love you."

She leaned in and kissed him, her arms around his shoulders. "There is that."

"The Avengers would take you in a heartbeat. And could probably help with a costume."

"I'd rather show up with it done."

"Then we'd best get cracking on that idea."

Carol kissed him again. "Thanks, Rhodey."

"Any time, gorgeous." He flashed her a goofy and brilliant grin. "Shall we get to work on your new uniform, Captain?"

Laughing, Carol dragged him to her bedroom.

***  
***


	2. Helheim

Natasha got up, feeling groggy and sore, as if she had been heavily drugged, tossed around, then left in an uncomfortable position on a cold stone floor somewhere. It was eerily quiet, no sounds other than her own breathing. Likely, whoever had snatched her had left her alone, so it was safe enough to take stock of the situation. She pushed herself up to a sitting position and managed not to feel overly nauseous, though her head swam dizzily. Keeping her eyes closed only seemed to heighten the sensation, so she cautiously opened her eyes.

She was sitting on the ground in a gray field at the very center of a circle of standing stones, each one inscribed with different runes. Everything around her was fairly nondescript, the sky the gray of a predawn spring. No clouds marred the view, no hint of sun or moon or even stars bright enough to pierce the haze. It seemed like a fog was in the distance, obscuring everything but the single stone path leading out of the circle.

Her clothes were not what she had been wearing before. Instead of her nanomesh armor catsuit and fighting gear, she was in a white dress that had a square neckline, cap sleeves, gathered in at the waist and then fell to midcalf. Her feet were bare, and she was wearing no jewelry. Her hair hung loose in soft waves.

"What the hell?"

As soon as she said the words aloud, everything clicked for her. She was in Helheim.

"Well, damn," she muttered, looking around again. It was a different entry point than the last times she had visited. Those times had been via portals carefully constructed not to strip her soul from her body. This must be the entry for the dead.

There was only one path through the fog. Tales were always telling of misfortune to those that wandered from the path, with horrible things happening, monsters rearing up and rending the fools limb from limb. Natasha was no fool. She was simply dead.

Following the path, she made her way out of the standing stones and through the fog. It felt as though she walked for miles, though she wasn't tired. She didn't feel much of anything, actually, but was _bored_ of the sunless gray that permeated the entire place. If she had an idea of where Hel's castle was, she would have chanced straying from the path to find it.

Finally she came to an area where the stone walkway opened into a wide circle. Paths split off from it like spokes on a wheel, though there was no indication where each path led. This was rather irritating, but Natasha simply closed and eyes and tried to get a sense of where she was in Helheim. Souls weren't meant to wander here aimlessly, after all. It was a wide realm, growing to fit the needs of the dead, and that meant there had to be a place for her. She might not have always felt at home in different places while alive, but she had started feeling as though Avengers Tower had been home, her friends her family.

She could still sense magic. That must have been in her very bones and skin, because nothing else had come with her when she died. Using it was difficult, having no magic skill of her own, but she could still sense things, could still home in on where magic was. It had helped her track down Amora in the caverns in upstate New York, allowed her to sense the wrongness that had entered Asgard, get a feel for where Loki was and what mischief he could get up to, and now was leading her in a certain direction. She took a step forward, testing that magical sense, and it only grew stronger.

Keeping her eyes closed, Natasha began to walk.

The numbness around her faded as she progressed, sound beginning to come to her ears. It was still muffled, and was probably what the world sounded like to Clint. He'd had some hearing loss prior to his death, but it had worsened afterward. He hadn't blamed Hel for it, thinking that perhaps it was the repeating gunfire from Yelena shooting him. "Tash," he'd said at the time she suggested it was Hel's fault, "she brought me back from the dead. She didn't have to. If I lose a few more decibels of hearing, I really don't give a fuck. That's what hearing aids are for. I'm alive, I still have my sight as sharp as ever, and I can shoot a target. I'm okay."

Gradually, the sounds stopped being so muffled and sounded rather like city life. Natasha opened her eyes and found a medieval town ahead of her, and beyond it was Hel's castle. Perhaps she had approached the castle from a different direction before, or perhaps the town was only visible to the dead. The thought didn't bother her as much as the place had obviously bothered Sif before. Then again, Natasha had a very pragmatic view of death to begin with.

Natasha skirted around the town, not feeling the need to explore the buildings or see who lived there. She wanted to see Hel, after all, not innumerable strangers.

Reaching the front gates, Natasha looked up at the gargoyles above. They stared straight ahead, and didn't acknowledge her presence. "Excuse me," she called out to them. "I'd like to speak with Lady Hel."

No response, and the portcullis remained lowered. Thinking they couldn't hear her, Natasha looked at the gate post carefully. It was made of hewn stone, with only the barest of lips around each stone to serve as finger or toe holds. Seeing that, she sighed. At least she was barefoot. Her boots never would have found purchase.

Climbing up took some time, but she was careful and didn't tire as she would have if she was still alive and trying this stupid stunt. Once she reached the stone gargoyle, she touched its surface gingerly. Magic pulsed beneath her fingertips, and the creature turned to face her, lips drawn back in a snarl. Ignoring that, she pasted a pleasant smile on her face. "Hello. I thought perhaps you couldn't hear me down below. I'd like to speak with Lady Hel."

_She is too busy to deal with the likes of you._

"Even Natalia Alianovna Romanova? She'd marked me as hers some time ago."

The gargoyle considered the words, then looked at her carefully. _You're not supposed to be here like this._

"Dead, you mean? In my line of work, it had to happen eventually."

 _You are very... calm about the situation,_ the gargoyle mused. Was that humor in its tone?

"No point being upset about it. I can't change it. The most I can do is figure out what happened to me and what I'm supposed to do next."

_You're dead. There's very little purpose to existence here._

"I don't like that," she said sweetly. "I'd rather take a more active approach."

 _I see that,_ the gargoyle replied, definitely amused now. _By all means, enter the castle if you can._

"What do you mean?"

_The dead don't enter unless the Lady Hel wills it. I don't control the gates._

"You don't? I thought you did."

_Helheim is an extension of her will and might. As am I._

Natasha nodded as if she understood. "Well, thank you for clarifying that."

_You're very polite._

"No point being rude to you just because you're doing your job. I'll be rude to someone for all sorts of other reasons."

The gargoyle laughed, then resumed its prior perch. _I wish you good fortune, Ambassador Romanova,_ the gargoyle said. _I see why she is taken with you._

Having nothing to reply, Natasha dropped down to the ground. As she thought, she wasn't injured by the fall and landed on her feet. "Taken with me, huh?" she mused, rolling her shoulders as she contemplated the gate. "Then she'll let me in."

And sure enough, as she came close to the portcullis this time, it raised high enough for her pass through the gate without any trouble at all.

While she couldn't quite remember the way to the throne room, she found herself there anyway. The doors opened to admit her, and Hel was seated on the throne. Her dress was the dark black of a midnight sky on a new moon night, no stars to be seen. Silvery thread leant a shimmer to the fabric, and Natasha thought perhaps it wove runes into it. She didn't doubt the presence of spells in the dress or in the headdress Hel wore. It was a heavy silver circlet, wide enough that it cast shadows over her eyes, giving them the appearance of empty eye sockets in a skull.

"Lady Hel," Natasha said as she walked into the throne room. "Greetings."

Hel's lips drew back in an amused smile. "I truly don't see you often enough, my dear."

"It looks like that has changed. I'm dead."

"You are if I say you are," Hel replied, the smile still on her lips.

Natasha looked at her evenly, arms at her sides. "Did you just want a visit?"

"You needed a break. And someone wants to see you very much. Considering our last conversation was rather less than pleasant, I thought to correct it."

Hel looked rather pleased with herself, and Natasha was about to open her mouth to ask what she meant when there was the click of heels on stone behind her. She turned and saw a petite blonde woman wearing the same white dress she was, only with white sling back heels and a string of pearls around her neck. "Yelena?" Natasha asked, stunned.

"Yes," she replied, smiling sweetly at her. She clasped her hands in front of her and seemed almost shy, almost reverent, much as she had right before Natasha had slit her throat. "It's really me, this time. Nobody else with me."

"What are you talking about?"

A door swung open to Natasha's left. "Why don't the two of you talk in private?" Hel suggested, rising from her throne. She appeared at Natasha's side in an instant, movement too fast for the eye. She rested her hands gently on Natasha's shoulders, suddenly looming large above her, face concealed by shadow. Her teeth gave the appearance of fangs, eyes glittering like falling stars. "I am quite sure you have much to discuss. I will speak with you afterward."

"Thank you, my lady," Yelena said, curtseying deeply in her direction.

Confused, Natasha let Hel push her toward Yelena and the open door. It led to a comfortable windowless room that looked more like a bedroom, with its divan and piles of pillows and furs scattered everywhere. The door sealed shut behind them.

"I don't understand," Natasha said slowly, taking in Yelena's youthful enthusiasm and guileless smile. "What's going on?"

Flashing her an almost childlike grin, Yelena drew her toward the divan. "I couldn't tell you about the others in my head," she said, letting go of Natasha's hands to tap her temple. "I didn't even know how many others there were, not all of them, but some of them I could talk to. They weren't all very nice, and I had a version of Starkovsky there," she added, tapping her temple again. "Alive, even after he burned in reality, but a Starkovsky inside my mind, part of me but separate, and he was gaining strength as we brought other organizations to their knees."

"Others. As in, other personalities?"

"They were people. We shared my body. I didn't even know it at first, what was happening, and with the personality overlays they gave us..." Yelena shot her an apologetic smile. "They were real to me, were part of me. I _was_ them, even after the overlays were supposedly stripped out of my mind. Sometimes they helped me. So when I lost my grip on my body, even when with you, they helped keep things consistent to the outside world so no one would know. You saw it as erratic behavior, and explained it away with lots of little excuses. I let you. I fed you bullshit, too, because how do I explain it to you? How do I tell you how horribly crazy I am? How could you love me when I'm that broken?"

"I've always loved you, Yelena."

"Not as much as Winter. Not as much as your Clint."

Natasha sighed. "It's not the same. It's not a ranking game. It shouldn't be."

"No. But we can tell through priorities." Yelena cupped Natasha's cheek with one hand tenderly, thumb stroking her skin. "I would raze the world in your name. I would kill anyone and everyone if that's what it took to keep you safe. And you can't dive headlong into that for me."

It was the same way that Loki loved her, she realized suddenly. Both saw love as a destructive force, as something to prove themselves worthy for, something that had to be earned instead of simply being, that it had be bought with blood and sacrifice.

"Sometimes love just is," Natasha said quietly. "It was simpler when we were children."

"It was only us, and we kept each other safe."

"There were never conditions on it when we were children. We made it work. It simply was, and it was good enough."

"We all grow up sometime."

Natasha pulled her hand down into her lap and squeezed her hand tightly. "I'm sorry I wasn't good enough to keep you safe."

"You were perfect," Yelena contradicted with a gentle, loving smile. "You always were the best, the model we all had to follow. You were what we all wanted to be. I made you happy for a little while, didn't I?"

"You did."

Yelena beamed at her, reminding Natasha of when they were children in the Red Room, tangled together in the dark. "I've always loved you, Natalia. Even when I didn't know what love was, when I thought it was a silly fairy tale."

"And now we're both dead."

"But I know you're not for me," Yelena murmured, reaching up to push Natasha's curls behind an ear. "I can have a little time with you, but there's more in store for you. The seers all said so, and the Queen has plans for you."

"Frigga?"

Shooting her an irritated. "Don't be deliberately dense."

Natasha blinked. "Oh. I suppose I don't think of Hel as a queen. Lady Hel, maybe."

"She might not stand on ceremony, but she's still a Queen and rules this realm."

"So what are her plans?"

"I'm hardly in her confidence," Yelena replied, shrugging. "I think she brought me here more as a present to you."

"A present," Natasha echoed, not sure how she felt about that. Were the two of them being used in some kind of an elaborate game?

"Because you've been hurt so much," Yelena told her, nodding. "She thought it would be nice to see a familiar face. At least, that's what she told me."

Hel likely had multiple reasons for doing things, but Natasha wasn't about to reject Yelena's presence just because she was suspicious of Hel. "What's it been like for you while you've been here? For me it's been three months since you died."

"Has it?" she asked, not sounding upset in the slightest. "I don't know how long it's been for me. I'm just... here. Time really doesn't have meaning here." She shrugged, clearly unconcerned in a way she never would have been while alive. "It just is. I suppose it's nice now, since I'm by myself and not with all the others. I like the quiet." She tilted her head to the side to contemplate Natasha, a shy smile on her face. "Unless you don't want to be quiet at all."

"Yelena..."

Instead of answering, she leaned forward and kissed Natasha on the lips, hands on her shoulders to stay steady. Sighing a little, Natasha responded to the kiss and wrapped her arms around Yelena. It felt good to hold her like this, to feel _something_ other than regret.

"I don't think we'll get this chance again," she began softly, biting her lip a little as she touched her forehead to Natasha's. She smiled, still biting her lip, eyes dancing in amusement. "But we have a private room to talk in. So why not make use of it?"

"Like the old days?" Natasha asked wryly.

She laughed, a light and carefree sound. "Yeah. Before it all went wrong."

Natasha cupped her cheek with one hand. This would be a better memory of her, as opposed to the hotel room in Atlanta, the string of rundown and dingy places across Europe and the US, the swinging volatile moods, the flashbacks and nightmares and sheer terror of who she was becoming. She didn't like who she had been with Yelena. Wasn't that the real issue? She was a better person away from her. Not that it was Yelena's fault, but they had so many patterns of behavior that was hard to break.

"A better goodbye, then," Natasha offered. One last day. She could have this, and it would carry her through when she remembered Yelena. It was so much better than guilt.

It was easy to give herself over to Yelena's touch, to lift up the skirt of the ridiculous dress and then toss it up and over her head to somewhere across the room. There was no cold, no heat, just presence, and Yelena stripped off the dress and kicked off the shoes. No underclothes to get in the way of her fingers exploring her folds or her mouth suckling on a breast. Natasha held her head in place, fingers running through Yelena's blonde hair. She egged her on, murmuring childish endearments she hadn't said in a long time. Wet and slick around Yelena's fingers, Natasha let Yelena work her body as she knew how to do.

Yelena licked her way down to her pumping fingers, nipping and nuzzling the skin at random intervals. She murmured endearments in Russian, all the things she would have wanted to say when they were girls in the Red Room but couldn't. Then her mouth was on Natasha's clit, licking in broad stripes before flicking at it. Natasha whimpered, drawing her legs up toward her chest to give her better access. And oh, Yelena added another finger, further stretch, sliding into her deeper, and Natasha came with a cry. Yelena wasn't done, not by a long shot, and didn't slow down or alter the rhythm at all. Not falling off that crest, Natasha shook and panted. "Lena, Lena, right there," she gasped.

Smiling against her, Yelena continued as she was doing. Natasha shut her eyes and reveled in the feel of her mouth and fingers, in feeling Yelena's presence with her. Now she could feel the difference between this lovemaking and some of the times they were together before. Yelena had been absent or different, and that must have been other alters in charge of the body. Now it was Yelena alone, focusing all of her attention on Natasha's pleasure, on getting her to come and pant and moan her name. When her jaw ached, Yelena pulled her mouth away and continued with her fingers. She pressed her mouth to Natasha's quivering thighs, then leaned back to turn Natasha to the side. Still she pumped into Natasha, stretching over her and rubbing her bare breasts against Natasha's torso.

As her thumb hit Natasha's clit and made her wail, Yelena smiled, lips pressed right up to the underside of a breast. "I will continue, every way that you love it, as long as I need to, until you beg me to stop. Maybe then I will." She licked the seam of breast and torso, laughing in a sultry way. "If you're tired enough or I'm tired enough. Which will be a challenge, given how tireless the dead can be."

"You mean to fuck me to death?" Natasha gasped, writhing beneath her. She grasped Yelena's shoulders and brought her up for a filthy kiss.

"I'd kill you again with pleasure if I could," Yelena murmured, mouthing her jaw. "To make up for the pain I caused you, for the terror I left behind."

"You don't owe me—"

"Yes, I do." She gave Natasha a sad smile. "You don't like yourself with me, do you?" She kissed Natasha through the impending orgasm, still fingering her. "Not as I was, at least." Yelena shifted down, mouthing her skin. "But you want to. You want me to love back. I know that about you, and I love you so much for it."

"I do love you," Natasha gasped, nails scratching down Yelena's back.

Suckling a breast again, Yelena rubbed her own swollen clit and slicked folds against Natasha's thigh as she kept working her fingers inside Natasha's dripping slit. Her eyes were dark with passion as she looked up at Natasha, sucking hard.

Coming again, Natasha cried out when Yelena didn't slow down. She pushed at Yelena's arm, her gasp turning into a whine. "Too much," she whimpered and shifted away. Yelena giggled a little, then shifted position, allowing Natasha to sprawl onto her back. She lay there, limp and sweaty, hair sticking to her scalp. Her entire body was oversensitive and exhausted, yet she still craved more. Yelena sat beside her, crosslegged, grinning like a loon, one hand lying gently on Natasha's stomach. She leaned down to kiss her, and Natasha caught her lower lip between her teeth, tugging gently.

"When's my turn to turn you into a gibbering mess?"

"Thoughts are powerful here. You can start now, if you like. If you don't want to be so tired, you won't be." Yelena gave her a beatific smile, and kissed her tenderly. "And I would do anything and be anything you want, you know."

"I know," Natasha murmured. Sure enough, she was able to sit up and slide a hand around Yelena's neck to pull her in for a naughty kiss. Natasha smiled, biting her lip a little. "And I want you to be you. It's all I ever wanted for you."

Yelena touched Natasha's arm gently, eyes dancing. "I love you, Natashenko."

Natasha leaned forward to touch her forehead to Yelena's. "I love you, Yelena. Rooskaya," she added playfully, making her laugh.

"And now it's my turn," she said, pushing Yelena onto her back. Yelena laughed again, free and lighthearted, eagerly waiting for Natasha's touch.

***

The portal slashed open time and space, but was farther away from Hel's castle than Loki wanted to be. He had to walk through the endless sunless gray land, had to tread the path like an ordinary supplicant. He didn't want to think about the favor he owed Hel, the weight of a worthy life far too hefty to contemplate. But he wasn't storming Helheim and wasn't threatening to burn it down. That had to be worth something, surely?

The gargoyles at the top of the gates leading into the castle leered at him, baring their teeth in threatening grimaces. _Enter if you dare,_ one of them said. _You know not what you seek, Loki Odinson._

"You dare use that name?" Loki snarked, baring his own teeth. "I am no Odinson!"

_There are no secrets from the dead._

There was no answer he could give to that, so Loki simply strode forward, jaw clenched. He ignored the rising portcullis as if entry was his due, and made his way to Hel's throne room. She was perched on her throne, a bloodred gown embroidered in black on her skeletal frame. Her skin was the sallow color of a rotting corpse, though no blemish could be seen. There was a headdress on her head, deep black of a starless night, with protruding horns on either side of her head. It cast shadows across her face, adding to the frightening ethereal look.

"My Lady Hel," Loki began, using his most charming voice. He even gave her a gallant bow, as befitting her station, and rose to his full height.

"To what do I owe this honor, Loki?" she asked, her voice like the whisper of grave dust and dead leaves moving across a headstone.

He smiled, but it was more of a grimace than a genuine smile. "Natasha Romanoff is dead."

"Oh, yes. Of that I am very much aware."

"I wish to bargain for her soul."

"Really?" Hel asked in reply, lips stretching into an amused smile. "And what have you to bargain with?"

She'd already refused his soul once, but it was all he had to give. "My own."

"Your own what? Soul?" She laughed, the sound like grating metal. "Loki. Why would I want that? What value is it to me?"

"It was equal in measure to Clint Barton's."

"Doesn't that pain you? A mere mortal, just as worthy as you?"

Worthier than he, if Loki had to tell the truth, but Hel wasn't asking for that. He lifted his chin to meet her dead gaze. "It means he had risen above the mire of his origins."

Hel laughed, amused. "Oh, Loki. How proud you still are."

Loki's temper flared, and his grimace went from obeisant to snarling. "I could raze this land to the ground, drown your castle in fire and sever the connection of every denizen in this realm. Do not belittle me!"

She was on her feet inside of a blink. The power radiating from her was terrible and threatened to knock him to his knees. "You _dare_ threaten me here? In the seat of my power? I am the arbiter of life and death, of the secrets they hold, of the riches they had. _You owe me, Loki._ Did you think you could try to claim me as a Lokasdottir? Did you think you held sway over me in some fashion?" Her laughter was derisive and cruel, and Loki resisted the urge to flatten himself to the floor.

No matter his mistakes, he would not bow or scrape.

Hel swept down from the dais until she was in front of him. Her spindly limbs still held strength, and she was taller than he was now. "This is _my_ realm, Loki. This is _my_ place of power, _my_ home. Oh, I know how you lust after Natalia, the poor mortal girl. Should I reshape her, then?" Her voice was deceptively sweet, and Loki's skin crawled at the sensual curve of Hel's lips. "Shall I put her back together, hale and whole? Womb intact? Shall I let you bed her, beget a child? You have one in some realities, you know. Sometimes you have two. So tell me, Loki. Would she be your Angrboda? Your Sigyn?"

"Hel..."

"Yes, Loki?" she asked sweetly, as if reveling in the spike of fear and misery she had generated within his breast. "Oh, but she already played the role of Sigyn for you, did she not? She poured the venom from the bowl to save your life, sacrificing her safety for yours. So shall she bear your Nali and Vali? Or did you want Jormungandr and Fenrir, since I already exist?" Now her voice turned cruel, and her hands were like hooked claws. "Should she bear you monsters? Or shall I make her bear lovely boys, beautiful and kind, and watch as you love her, watch as you love them with all your twisted heart? Then make you give them to me, so I may take their souls and rule over them for eternity and let you wallow in the shame of it?"

It tasted like ashes in his mouth, like ice water in his veins. "Don't harm her," he said in a soft, pained voice. "Please. Do whatever you like to me, but don't harm her."

"You offered that before," Hel replied, sounding bored. "Try again."

"I just want Natasha to live."

"I can make her perfect..."

"She already is!"

Hel stepped backward, biting her lip and smiling as if he had offered her a great delicacy. She brought her hands together in delight, humming. "Oh, Loki," she said, voice full of pity. "The things you give me."

"You already knew of my feelings for her."

"Oh, but you give me so much more than that."

Not knowing what she meant by that, Loki glared at her. He would not give her the satisfaction of asking her what she meant, he would not. His pride was in tatters, nothing more than ashes, but he clung to the scraps of it.

Looking to the side, Hel beamed and gestured for someone behind Loki to enter the throne room. "My dear," she said warmly. "Come here, child, tell me how your visit went."

It was Yelena Belova, appearing innocent and sweet, dressed in white, the skirt of the dress flaring out from her tiny waist, the bustline rather demure and cut to show off the pearl necklace resting on the rise of her breasts. She wore white shoes and no other adornment. What did it all mean? Or did it mean nothing at all?

She sat gingerly down on the steps to the dais, right at Hel's feet where she sat regally in her throne. Wait, how did she get there? Loki hadn't seen the movement at all. But Yelena looked up at Hel with a rapt expression, as if Hel hung the sun and moon. Perhaps here, she did.

"Oh, it was lovely. I know I don't necessarily deserve it, that I can't ask for anything like that, but I am so grateful for the time you've given me."

Loki was shocked at how gentle and fragile Yelena sounded. It was nothing like the visions he had seen of Yelena prior to her death.

Hel stroked Yelena's hair as if she was a cute child or a kitten. "I'm glad, my dear. You had such horrors visited upon you. A little tenderness is such a small gift."

"Not to me, my Queen. It's meant everything to me."

By the Tree, Yelena was all but besotted with Hel. She would do anything that Hel asked her to do without questions asked, Loki could tell. She was a hollowed out girl, needing direction, the lost and helpless girl left when the sociopathic killer was stripped away.

As if sensing Loki's horror, Hel met his gaze with a sinister smile, still petting Yelena's hair as she sat there, all but purring at the attention. "And what would you do for me, darling girl?"

Wanting to retreat or perhaps vomit, Loki instead stood his ground. That was what he called Natasha, and here was Hel calling Yelena that. He was sure that Hel didn't actually sleep with the dead souls of her realm, but what did he actually know? Her motives were her own. He hadn't even been aware of what her mother's motives had been, and look at what had happened.

"Anything, my Queen," Yelena said with utter adoration. "Anything at all."

"Then get your lady love for me. We have unfinished business here."

"Of course."

She skipped down the steps and past Loki, the bounce in her step and the smile on her face making him want to throw up. "What are you doing?" he hissed to Hel.

"Oh, Loki. Do you have any comprehension of the power that the dead possess?"

No, he hadn't. Not until he had come here and felt it pulsing all around him. Even the powerless dead fed Hel, and those with magic fueled her directly. Her numbers swelled constantly, and she had her choice of what to do with those energies they provided.

This was true power, not the paltry excuses of magic that Loki played with.

Natasha arrived, barefoot and in a dress similar to Yelena's. Her hair was vivid red in the gloom, tousled and inviting rather salacious thoughts as Loki watched her walk. Her eyes slid past Loki as if he wasn't even there, as if all she saw was empty space. She smiled and bowed regally to Hel, and didn't say anything as Yelena moved to take her place at Hel's feet.

"Lady Hel, thank you for the visit. I really appreciate it."

Hel seemed to be amused, and Loki had to wonder if it was at his expense. Especially when he found he was unable to speak, not even a grunt or calling out her name.

"If I gave you the opportunity to live again, would you?"

Natasha frowned, looking at her in confusion. "But I'm dead."

"I have power over life and death, remember? I could send you back."

She opened her mouth and shut it, eyes fixed on Yelena for a moment as Hel stroked her hair again. "Clint and James were probably devastated. I know Loki probably was. The others—"

"I asked about _you._ Do _you_ wish to go back? Or are you ready to leave that mortal coil forever?"

This gave Natasha pause, and Loki knew that she had gotten so used to sacrificing herself for others, she likely never really thought about what _she_ wanted.

"Yes, I'd like to go back, if I can."

Hel beamed at her, as if that was what she had expected Natasha to say, and Yelena's smile had a soft and sad cast to it. "Of course you do. Unfinished business. And the matter of Selene going after Midgard."

"It's not going to be easy to take her down."

Loki wanted to reach out and touch her, caress her. The matter of fact tone comforted him. Even in death she was the same. Some things were constants in the universe.

"Of course not. But I can give you a little help."

"Why?"

This amused Hel a lot, and Loki struggled against the invisible bonds holding him fast. He never even felt the casting, she was that good.

"Selene has been in existence since the beginning of time. Or close enough to it." Now her smile had an edge to it, a frightening cast that reminded Loki that it was never a good idea to fuck with death. Thanos hadn't learned that lesson yet, but he was off collecting deaths in another part of the cosmos, so Loki couldn't be bothered to care.

"And?"

"Bring her here. And Loki will have to present me with her heart."

Loki's stomach plummeted to his toes. _What?_

Natasha was frowning at her, confused. "You don't want me to carve it out of her or something like that? As if it's from a story?"

"As amusing as that would be, no. That would change the properties of the heart. I want it intact until it's time to be harvested. And Loki will harvest it for me. It's the price of a life."

He could remember stag hunts and larger meat beasts being slaughtered for high holiday feasting on Asgard. Little more than a boy at the time, he had been unprepared for the carnage that carving up an animal generated. A humanoid body would be the same. The blood and gore would be awful, and he would have nightmares of it for ages.

A wave of Hel's hand and then the bindings and invisibility spells were lifted from Loki. Natasha turned toward him in surprise, lips parting. Yggdrasil's roots, she was gorgeous, and it pained him to see her and know he was forbidden from doing anything else. Touching her was outlawed by tradition, lest her death corrupt him or draw out his soul. Why go through the trouble of a specialized portal to keep his soul inside his body if she would simply remove it with a touch? All the horrors he tried to avoid would crash down upon him.

Hel's instructions washed over him. What did it matter anyway? How would they tempt Selene to the realm of the dead? How could he carve her heart from her chest? It was an impossible task, one that would kill him.

But she descended from her throne faster than his eyes could even see, her hands on Natasha's chest. She was paralyzed, eyes blown wide with pain. Her lips were open in a silent scream, and the dress caught fire and burned to ashes. Her skin wasn't blistered, but Loki could see the tension in every line of her body, the way her eyes darted around with panic. Loki wanted to reach for her, wanted to help her, but would only make Hel angry. If he couldn't fulfill his debt and repay the favor, she could utterly destroy him.

And as the color came back into her features, she swayed and fell in his direction. Loki caught her by instinct, and he watched as clothes formed over her body. First the underthings, cami and socks, then her black nanomesh armor and boots. Even her usual weapons were in place, though they carried the air of magic augmentation to them, rather like the twin swords still in her possession back at Avengers Tower.

"I give you the means to find Selene," Hel told her sweetly. To Loki, she seemed to have terrifying and ethereal power, the likes of which could obliterate all the other realms at once if she chose to do so. When her gaze turned to him, he barely managed not to quail in fear. "Don't disappoint me."

It didn't matter what Natasha said, what she believed. There was nothing else but to obey Hel's command or suffer the consequences.

***  
***


	3. Return

It was chaos when Loki returned with Natasha in his arms.

"You don't understand!" Jane had cried, eyes wide and her hands hovering somewhere close to her mouth. "We had a dead body that we buried. There was a funeral! Open casket. Everybody came. I mean, SHIELD agents, us, the superheroes all around the world, people lining up in the city... You were _dead."_

Natasha had simply stared at her in incomprehension. Darcy and Clint were on the floor, and Clint looked gobsmacked. James sat hunched in a corner, hollows under his eyes and hair grown out longer than she would have expected. Steve and Sif were close to him, thank goodness, but both seemed haunted as well. Pepper looked ready to cry. Tony was steadily drinking his way through an obscenely expensive bottle of scotch. Bruce looked positively ill but not quite green around the gills in a way that would indicate the Hulk was imminent. Thor looked pensive, as he tended to every time Hel was mentioned. And Loki...

Loki looked beaten down. Old. Fragile.

"You buried a body," Natasha repeated, looking at Jane intently. "People came to my funeral?"

"Don't you get it?" Clint said, his voice a rasp. "People love you. Not just us, people all over."

Odd, how that was the thought that bothered her more than being dead. She had always assumed she would die while working a job. That idea had actually been comforting; her death would mean something, she would be useful, she would be helping someone.

Once everyone got over the shock, there was the inevitable barrage of questions to confirm her identity, regarding her death and what Helheim was like. She was shuffled off to the medical floor, where Dr. Georgia Calderon was informed of her sudden resurrection after two months' time. Tony confirmed that no one had disturbed her burial site in Brooklyn – James and Steve seemed almost sheepish at that piece of information, but she assumed it was because their families had been buried there, and she was family. Techs drew labs and took the samples that Dr. Calderon would then use to assess the biometric data that she had on file for each Avenger living in the Tower.

"Do a scan," Loki said suddenly, startling everyone. It had been crowded in the examination room, but Natasha hadn't complained. Now she looked at him, a question in her eyes. "It's something that Hel said. About making you whole."

Of course Tony had his own MRI and CT scanner in the building to use, and Dr. Calderon elected to get the MRI due to its thinner image slices for more precise scanning. Natasha laid very still inside the coil, remembering other times she had done something similar for the Red Room or for SHIELD. Her memories were all there, even the ones she didn't want to have, even the ones that would have been kinder to forget.

Dr. Calderon still had her kohl ringed eyes, and her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail this time. Her hair had grown since Natasha had last seen her. The embroidered lab coat with her name and SI logo was tossed onto a chair in her office hours later, the dedicated scanners all running whatever test that the doctor had wanted. Everyone seemed waiting on tenterhooks; even Pepper had cancelled all her meetings at SI that day to be there with her.

"All the biometric data matches. All the markers that were on file as belonging to you are there, including the ones that likely were left over from your traumatic childhood," Dr. Calderon began. She was leaning back in her chair behind the desk, stacks of notes and papers in front of her, her hands folded across her stomach and a serious expression on her face.

"Meaning I'm the same person."

"Exactly the same," Dr. Calderon agreed, "except for one thing."

She turned the screen around on her computer. Two MRI images were side by side, and she began to slowly scroll down. On the left was the scan made of Natasha three years prior. On the right was the scan three hours prior. The slices were cross sectional, starting with her skull and then moving down to her feet. It was at the pelvis that the differences between the two sets of images leapt out at everyone crowded into the office behind Natasha.

"What is it?" James asked anxiously.

"I can't see..." Jane began.

"What is this?" Thor asked.

"Talk to us in English, doc," Tony blurted.

Natasha curled in on herself a little, immediately understanding what she was seeing, her hands pressed tight against her flat belly. "Oh," she said in a very small voice. "Oh."

"You had been subjected to a lot of testing," Dr. Calderon said, voice infinitely gentle. Natasha closed her eyes and let her accented voice wash over her. "And the notes clearly stated that they had performed a vaginal hysterectomy when you were ten."

Nodding, she felt tears tracking down her face. It had never mattered before. She had never known loss about it, exactly. That had simply been one more thing taken away from her before she had understood what it was. And then there had been no point in mourning, no point in wishing for something that could never be.

 _You're not a mother,_ Loki had sneered at her once, when he had thought such things would hurt her. It hadn't, because she had already come to terms with it.

"Your body was recreated," Dr. Calderon said in those same gentle, quiet tones. Loki's hand came to rest on her shoulder, and suddenly she wondered what Hel had said to him, what kind of cruelty had she inflicted to make him seem to fragile and hesitant. "There's still a body in that grave in Brooklyn, so a new one was made for you. And apparently, it was done without regard to what your body had actually been like when you died."

"I don't understand," Steve said. His voice seemed so distant to Natasha's ears. "What are you dancing around, doctor? What is the rest of us missing?"

"Natasha has a uterus again. All of her prior biomarkers are intact and identical. All of her vital signs are perfectly normal. Lab work is well within the limits of normal. It's as if she had never died at all."

Loki's hand tightened on her shoulder, and Natasha looked up. The doctor looked at her, somehow understanding without being told that this was a shock. "I did die, doctor," she said, voice low and strained. "I died, I went to Helheim, I talked with the dead. And now I'm back, and I'm almost exactly the way I used to be, but with one little difference that can be very significant if I wanted it to be."

"Yes," Dr. Calderon agreed. "Unless you want to return your body to its prior state."

Did she? Was this a test for her? Or for Loki?

The crowd behind her meant she couldn't slip out or push past them and run. She simply nodded and thanked Dr. Calderon, then left the office when the others parted to let her pass, Loki trailing in her wake.

But upstairs, she couldn't contain the sticky morass of emotions that roiled inside of her chest, threatening to choke her. It was easy to move fast, for only Loki to keep up with her; James could, if he wanted to, but he likely was giving her space to think. She usually like that, but right now she only wanted to lash out. She wanted to hurt someone, something, anything, just _get it out,_ get all of this unwanted newness out of her, make the clock turn back the months she had been dead.

"What did she say to you?" Natasha asked Loki, eyes flashing. "Tell me what Hel said to you, why you would know to ask for that MRI. Tell me what made you think this would happen to me when she brought me back."

"She has power over life and death," Loki temporized.

"Tell me," she demanded, a bit of her domme voice creeping in.

Loki flinched, and turned away. "You don't understand how devastated I was. How broken. How lost..." His voice wavered. "I am a monster. I am _evil,_ tainted, impure..."

 _"Coward,"_ Natasha hissed.

He straightened up, jaw tight at the insult. "You, who has always said I was not _argr..."_

"Tell me what I want to know," she commanded. Somewhere beyond the two of them in the sitting room, the rest of the Avengers were pretending not to listen. Natasha couldn't bring herself to care. The shock in Dr. Calderon's office was giving way to something like anger, but she couldn't even begin to identify the why of it yet. Did her therapist close out her file with her death? Or were the notes of her sessions still available to her? Did needing a therapist to sort this all out mean she was a neurotic mess?

"She said you played the role of Sigyn," Loki snarled, as if the words were being ripped out of his very soul. "She asked if you should bear Nali and Vali or Jormungandr and Fenrir. She already exists, after all, deathless death, born of magic and more death," Loki spat, wrenching himself away from her. He paced, agitated, a thin layer of frost forming over his skin. He didn't have a Jotnar form, she knew, something to do with what happened in the Void before he had shown up on Earth trying to take it over.

"Loki..."

"She asked if you should bear me monsters. Or lovely boys, the kind to make my heart break, like the ones she would take in the end. I saw it, Natasha. A different life, a different reality along the branches of Yggrasil—"

He shut his lips, but she had already reached his side and spun him around. Natasha searched his face, seeing the pain etched there. "What did you see?" she asked, voice dropping in volume, softer around the edges.

"We were married," he rasped. "Happy. Working for SHIELD together, with a child in the cradle. You loved me." Tears welled to the surface of his eyes, and he blinked them back furiously. "Torture in the days after your death. I never saw it, the child, but it cannot be an easy thing to see. It could not have been an easy birth."

"Are you that certain any child of yours would be cursed?" she asked, her own voice sounding a little hollow to her ears.

"How could it not? Perhaps your children should be James', sired in perfect love and affection. It would be fitting, wouldn't it?"

"Not all of the mythical children were monsters."

"I'm not human. For all that you've been changed and augmented, you are."

"Do you really think Hel would taunt you this way and not make it possible for you to be a father?" Natasha asked flatly.

If anything, that made him go very still, giving Natasha the impression of a caged animal ready to bolt at the first sign of an open door.

"How do you think I feel?" she continued, her voice more like a low hiss. "Do you think I asked for that? Do you think I wanted that?"

"Isn't that a good thing?" he asked, confused.

"I was trained to be an assassin. A killer. To have no ties because they would strangle me, they would make me weak. That would make it harder to kill without question, to follow orders they gave me. A walking incubator is the last thing they would want me to be."

Which might be the draw to the situation if she believed in giving the finger to ghosts. As it was, she was angry and confused and _terrified_ of even the potential of children, because she had never thought it would be possible before. And even if she chose never to have biological children of her own, now she was thinking about children, about babies and their needs and how godawfully unprepared she would be as a mother. And Loki? He was woefully inadequate as a father. Even James was only marginally better prepared because of his younger sisters that he had helped care for before becoming a soldier.

Hel must have laughed her ass off in Helheim, but Natasha sure as hell wasn't getting the joke.

Loki reached across the space between them and tenderly brushed his fingers across her cheek, lips quivering with pain. "You are not a thing, Natasha. I have been mistaken about many things about you, but I never truly thought of you as an inanimate object."

"And that might be the only thing saving us in this conversation right now," she replied dryly.

His startled laughter soon had her laughing, too. It was either that or cry, and she _refused_ to do that. She refused to be a victim of circumstances outside of her control. She would figure out what to do with this piece of information about herself, try to find a way to get past the feeling that her body was some alien creature that didn't belong to her.

When James entered the room soon after, a hesitant look on his face, she pulled him to her and buried her face in the crook of his neck. She breathed in the scent of him, felt the warmth of his skin against her cheek. His arms encircled her tightly, and she heard Loki slip out of the room without another word. James knew what it was like to have his body changed against his will and without regard to his wishes. And right now, she just needed silent support.

Later, she could figure out what she wanted to do.

***

Wanda walked into Avengers Tower, stepping through a smoky portal from halfway across the world, oblivious to the odd currents and tensions around her. She had been ignoring a great many things around her at the Sanctum Sanctorum, had been absorbing the quality and tenor of the magic in that place. She felt old, the weight of lifetimes crammed inside her fragile body. She had knitted the fabric of magic back together as best as she could, the different styles of magic she had been taught making for a really odd pattern. More had died before she finished; she had felt the loss of them like a thread snapping between her fingers, but had to push back the urge to scream or cry.

Curling up on a couch in the den, she ignored the whispers around her. She hadn't wanted to go back to the Village and get new missions from Marissa or Dr. Strange, and she hadn't wanted to sit in her suite alone. There were the different ways to weave portals together so she could talk to Pietro or any of the other lost children the Baron had changed, but that seemed to be like too much work for the moment. It was enough to feel like a cat, curled tightly and lying on her side on a couch, hair falling over her face, black fingerless gloves shredded and smoking slightly. Her leggings had holes in them, her jacket was dusty, the heels of her boots had been worn away as if she had run for miles.

"Um... Who are you again?" came a hesitant woman's voice.

Wanda flicked her wrist lazily, a roiling ball of magic forming in her palm and then shooting out to hit the wall past the woman's hunched form. "Guess."

"Lady, they don't tell me shit like that. I don't have clearance or something like that."

Pushing her hair out of the way, Wanda looked up into the concerned features of Darcy Lewis, whom she had heard about but somehow never actually met. Learning how to use the gift she had been given and then putting out magical fires all over the world had occupied too much of her time, after all.

"Wanda Maximoff. Scarlet Witch."

"Cool codename," Darcy replied sagely. "Okay to shake hands, or is the glowy energy thing meaning that it would zap me?"

Letting her hair fall back over her face, Wanda shook her head as best as she could while it was still pressed against the couch. "Ugh, I'm so tired. Whatever you want it to mean."

"Crazy stuff happened to you, too, I take it?"

"Magic. Magic happened, and lots of it."

"Oh! You too? There's all kinds of weird and creepy magic stuff going down right now. No wonder Natasha came back and is all weirded out."

Wanda shot upright on the couch, nearly colliding with Darcy's head. "She's alive?"

"Yeah. I caught the whole freak show in action. Did you do that? I thought they said it was someone named Hel."

"Queen Hel of Helheim," Wanda replied. She had heard far too much about Hel on Asgard and in some of Frigga's magical texts. That kind of ability was not one to take lightly, and Hel was often spoken of only in frightened whispers. "She is very much real, and very much capable of doing something like that if she pleases."

"So why would she please in a case like this? Not that we're not grateful for getting her back, but... I get the feeling there are strings attached."

"Of course there are. Magic always has rules, functions, consequences..."

She swayed, her rapid motion finally catching up to her. Sighing, she let her eyes fall shut for a moment before looking up at Darcy again. "Natasha is back for a reason."

"If there is, I haven't heard about it yet. Maybe she'll tell Clint, and he might tell me, he might not." Wanda could see that Darcy wasn't concerned about that fact. She looked askance at Darcy when she plopped onto the couch next to her. "But even so, why are you smoking like you were on fire or something?"

"I was on metaphysical fire. Does that count?"

Darcy grumbled something about wrangling cats that Wanda couldn't catch, then pulled her into a tight hug. "You and I are going to get cookies and milk, talk about clothes and stupid shit, then you are going to your room to change and get into comfy pajamas. I think Clint and Natasha have oodles of shit to talk about, so you are now my designated best friend while Jane and Thor go consummate their neverending passion for like, the tenth time today."

"You make zero sense."

"You and I need to get to know one another better. I suspect you are very scarily sane under all that magic, which means I will probably need you to explain everything about it to me at some point. Plus, your day was probably very awful, so you are in desperate need of something that isn't awful. Chocolate chip cookies and milk are not awful." Darcy leapt to her feet, pulling Wanda along with her. "Right? Right."

This was at least infinitely better than dealing with Marissa or Loki, so Wanda let Darcy drag her into the kitchen. Steve and Sif were there, milk and cookies out. "You heard me!"

"Sounded like a most excellent idea," Sif declared.

"These are the chewy kind," Steve offered, pushing one of the bakery boxes in front of him toward Darcy and Wanda. "Really good with milk."

Sniffing playfully, Darcy plunked down in a seat opposite them and pulled Wanda down beside her. "I'm glad to see someone's been paying attention to my very necessary life lessons." She grinned as she snatched up a cookie and then passed one to Wanda. "Go on, snack first. No heavy talk until you feel up to the challenge of it."

"You're very bossy," Wanda observed.

"Yes, I can be. Especially for superheroes with no sense in taking care of themselves but will go around saving the world." She pointedly looked at Steve and wagged her half cookie at him accusingly. "Yes, you included, Captain America. Don't think I don't watch the news. I saw that report about you stomping on some mugger yesterday. No armor, and the dude had a knife! You're not invincible!"

Sif snickered at his hangdog look and bumped shoulders with him playfully. "It was quite the valiant display of bravery, though."

"Oh, not you, too. Were you there? What am I talking about? Of course you were there with him, you're like attached at the hip or something. Hordes of fangirls on the internet all over the world swooned with disappointment once they realized that you two are dating." Darcy finished her cookie and leaned her elbows on the table. She smiled warmly at them, though. "You two are disgustingly cute together."

"I didn't know you two were together," Wanda murmured. It was a very good cookie, Darcy was right about that. She was very overwhelming right now, though, so it was simply easier to go along with whatever she was spouting at the moment.

The warrior beamed at Wanda. "Oh, yes. And on Midgard, there are interesting inventions and no pressures for formal alliances."

"Though I _would_ go through all of that if it makes you happy," Steve replied in a reasonable tone of voice. Wanda had the sense that it was a conversation they had a few times already. "I'm sure Heimdall would love an excuse to party."

"He is the official guardian," Sif sighed. "He so rarely leaves his post."

Wanda remembered Heimdall, the gravitas and sense of magic all around him. "But there are ways to lock down the ways in and out of a realm," she told them. "Securing its borders is just a variation of _spá_ work. Those of us gifted at it would be able to do the spells."

"Really?" Sif asked in surprise.

"Sure. Queen Frigga and I met with Heimdall in the Observatory a few times before she let me come here with you. Something about dimensional magic, though I didn't understand it at the time," Wanda admitted.

"No more talking about work problems," Darcy declared, shoving another cookie at her. "You will stress yourself out if you keep thinking about it, and that is going to absolutely kill the ability to concentrate anyway." She picked up her own cookie. "If you keep up the thinking thing instead of relaxing, we'll have to get Dove chocolate and ponder the sayings they have on the wrappers. As well as lament the laughably inadequate serving size listed on the side of the bags they come in."

"That's five pieces," Steve pointed out in a reasonable tone.

"Yes, exactly," Darcy replied, munching on her cookie.

Pepper strolled into the kitchen with a mug in hand, still looking tense. She came up short and looked over the box of cookies that they had on the table. "Cookie party?"

"Her idea," Steve said, pointing at Darcy.

"Better than scotch," Pepper sighed, heading for the coffee pot. "I'm going to call in Rhodey to help deal with Tony. Between the meetings at SI and the upcoming events we're sponsoring... I can't deal with this right now." Her voice quavered and she looked away. "It's good news, I know it is, but..."

Darcy hopped off the table, cookie in hand to give to Pepper. "But it's magic. And there's a magical vampire out there that already killed her once. And when very powerful beings that might as well be gods are involved, and very afraid of what the hell is going on, it's more than enough of a reason to freak out," she said reasonably. "Have a cookie."

"That's not going to help," Pepper said.

"Do not mock the power of the chocolate chip cookie," she said sternly. "Yeah, you're like the ultimate uber boss, but right now, you are in need of endorphins to deal with a dead friend suddenly not being dead that might be dead again very soon if no one can figure out how to keep the magic vampire lady from eating her in a decidedly unsexy way. Right?"

Pepper sighed. "That about sums it up, yes. How did my life get so surreal?"

"You worked for Tony Stark," Darcy promptly replied.

Nibbling at the cookie, Pepper refilled her coffee mug. "You're good at superhero wrangling."

"Yep. Mostly because deep down you know what needs to be done and can't sit down long enough to take care of yourself. And it's always easier to do it if someone else tells you to."

She laughed a little, nodding. "There's so much work to do..."

"You're CEO of a massive company. I'm sure you have like, a dozen underlings or something."

"Not a dozen," Pepper protested.

"Call Rhodey," Steve offered, patting the seat next to him. "Have cookies and milk with us."

"Tony will self destruct without me."

"Jarvis, buddy!" Darcy called out.

"Yes, Miss Lewis?" came the AI's disembodied voice.

"You can sense blood alcohol levels, right?"

"I can extrapolate this through sensory data available in the lab."

"Excellent. Let us know when Tony's is twice the legal limit."

"It's already been hovering above that level," Jarvis promptly informed them.

"Hm..." Darcy munched on a cookie, apparently thinking. Wanda was just about to sneak away from the kitchen and the feeling that she was unnecessary when Darcy lit on her and nearly beamed. "Dimensions. That means portals, if I understood Jane and Bruce and their sciencing stuff correctly." Wanda reluctantly nodded, wondering what she was getting herself into. "Okay. Can you open a portal to Tony's lab? We're moving the cookie party to him. He can't wallow in misery and booze all day. That's just not healthy."

"That perhaps is the point," Sif said quietly.

"Well, fuck that. I'm the HR lady. I'm pretty sure I'm out of a job if he dies, right?" Darcy replied in a flippant tone. Wanda was sure Darcy wasn't as heartless as that sounded.

"That's not—" Pepper began.

"It's probably cruel and unusual punishment to pour the booze down the drain," Darcy continued, staring at Pepper. "So I'll need you to find it all and lock it up somewhere. Don't care where, as long as Tony doesn't have access. Jarvis, I'll need your help in keeping it on lockdown."

"Certainly, Miss Lewis."

"We've got two boxes of chocolate chip goodness. That's not enough to soak up all the booze in his system. Jarvis, order at least ten more. Between Tony and the rest of us up here, we're all going to need a lot of cookies. Oh, and at least three gallons of milk."

"Certainly, Miss Lewis."

Wanda startled when she realized that Darcy was staring at her expectantly. "Oh! Portal. But I'm not sure where it has to be..."

"You have a sense of who Tony Stark is?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"Anywhere nearby that won't send us into some kind of machinery or pointy tools," Darcy said brightly. She stuffed the rest of her cookie in her mouth and grabbed the boxes. "The rest of you guys grab the milk and mugs."

"Not exactly what I expected coming back here," Wanda admitted, opening a portal to Tony's lab, using Pepper's connection to him to find his exact location. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Steve and Sif gathering up milk and mugs as Darcy requested, and Pepper clutching her coffee mug as if her life depended on it.

"Admit it, this is better than putting out metaphysical fires," Darcy replied.

Wanda thought about it, then smiled. Pietro would love this kind of community, the family feel to it, the way they all banded together and supported each other in a time of crisis. This was what they had missed growing up and being in the Baron's labs. This was what she had wanted when she first agreed to learn magic and get involved in Earth's magical community.

"Yeah, it is."

"Excellent," Darcy said, all smiles. It seemed as though she could force them all into a happier state of mind by sheer force of will. "Let's go rescue Tony from himself, shall we?"

***  
***


	4. Regaining Reason

When Rhodey arrived, he brought his girlfriend Carol Danvers with him. Natasha had spoken with them occasionally, but didn't feel particularly close with either person. It felt odd that the two of them had to be drawn in to help support Tony from drinking himself to death, but she supposed that Tony took it personally that someone he knew had died. He wasn't good at letting others know he cared, but he still did. Opening his home up to the rest of them rent free and supporting them as best as he could was tantamount to declaring them his family. She wasn't sure if he was even aware of that fact, though.

She had talked with James after dealing with Loki, and the man had been very quiet at first. He simply held her, kissed her tenderly, and then asked outright "What do you want to do? First thing that comes to mind?"

"Nothing."

And it was true, in a sense. Her first instinct was to do absolutely nothing, not have elective surgery done, see how her body settled. The Red Room had wanted to change her, wanted to dehumanize her in any way they could. Wasn't this a perfect fuck you to their universe? And then if she did want a child...

But that was exactly what James was asking. Did she want one someday? Did she want one with him? With Loki?

"I don't know what I want," she admitted finally. "I don't want to think about it, I don't want to worry about it. I don't want to make any kind of decision."

"Then talk to Calderon. They got options so you don't have to deal with it now. It's not like you immediately have to have a baby or yank everything out."

Which was absolutely reasonable, and should have occurred to her sooner if she was thinking about things logically. But no, she felt paralyzed by fear, by the unknown, by not knowing how to act as if she knew what she was doing, even if she didn't. So she wrapped her arms around James, nodding. "Thank you," she murmured. "It felt like I had to decide _now."_

"Because some alternate version of you had a kid?" James asked.

"You heard that?" Natasha asked wryly.

"Natalia, _everyone_ heard that." When he caught her wince, James kissed her forehead gently. "Like it or not, we're all family. One twisted, fucked up family, but we got each other now. I get it. There were bad days while you were dead, but I didn't screw up too badly, I don't think. I did stupid things, don't get me wrong," he admitted at her incredulous expression, "but I don't think I ruined anything. I certainly didn't kill anyone like I once thought I would."

"So we count that as a win."

"Exactly. But it hit us hard, Natalia," he admitted, stroking her cheek tenderly. "You don't think you are, but you're important to us. It wasn't good while you were gone. And now everyone's so afraid of losing you all over again."

So surprise fertility aside, Natasha had to wrap her brain around the _why_ of the situation at hand. She was alive again because Hel had a very specific job in mind for her to do. She had to help Loki harvest Selene's heart. Without dying again, preferably.

Clint had been most helpful in getting her back to her usual self. He had stared her down when she stammered her way through her fears, then sighed dramatically. "Oh, is that all?" he'd said, rolling his eyes. "I was hoping you would want more out of life than just balancing your ledger, but for the record, dying was not part of the picture."

"You're a complete ass sometimes, you know that?"

"Of course. Part of the charm," he'd replied easily, grinning at her. "Now. The whole to be or not to be a parent question is off the table. I don't care, you usually don't care, that's not the part that's really freaking everyone out, you know."

"I was dead. And now I'm not."

"Exactly. It's all that woo-woo magic crap none of us were trained for. And who killed you in the first place? Someone magical that sucks out magic."

"Who Hel wants us to kill at a very specific time and place."

"Oh, nice," Clint said sarcastically. He flopped down on the couch in his suite, lips pursed as he thought about what he knew. "She wants you to do her dirty work for her, basically. Which makes me think that Selene could probably destroy Hel."

"She was born of magic," Natasha replied. That gave her pause after a moment. "The only reason Hel's mother needed Loki was because he's magic," she realized, thinking out loud. "Magic in their cultures are usually the provenance of women. But Hel needed a father for her child, she needed magic to do it, and she needed both Loki's and then Frigga's help for Hel to survive."

Clint gave her an odd look. "Do I want to know why you know all that?"

Natasha waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "You know me and knowledge. You never know when it's going to be important."

"Like now."

"Like now," she agreed. "So this makes sense. Hel wants Selene stopped, but can't risk that her entire being will be ripped apart in the process. And let's face it, if Hel dies, then all of Helheim gets ripped apart along with her. An entire realm of the dead, including magical dead, all let loose and available for Selene to consume."

"Shit. Zombie apocalypse made real?" Clint looked at her incredulously. "The fuck?"

Leaning back against the back of the couch, Natasha nodded. "So. Yeah. Very much not what we trained for. I'm an assassin, not a magic user."

Clint poked her in the arm. "Yes, but now apparently you're a magic item. Creepy, but cool."

Natasha swatted his hand away, but her mouth twitched as she suppressed a smile. "Magic item, huh? So we're in a video game?"

"Kind of. So we need to set up a party by video game rules," Clint replied, warming to the idea. "I'm obviously for ranged attacks. You'd be melee, but I don't think you should really go in attacking Selene." At her incredulous look, Clint widened his eyes comically. "You're a magic item, Nat. _Magic item._ Against someone that sucks up magic like a sponge."

Grimacing, Natasha had to concede the point. "So we're looking at nonmagical people going after her, then Loki figuring out how to do what Hel wants."

"Pretty much. And we have plenty of those on the team, not to worry."

With those conversations in mind, Natasha approached the two of them with a social smile on her face. "Hello again."

Both did a double take when they saw her. "I know they said you were back from the dead," Rhodey began, blinking in surprise, "but holy shit. You look like you never died."

"I suppose if the Queen of the dead wants me alive, that's what would happen," Natasha replied in deadpan fashion.

"Pepper called us," Carol told Natasha. "She told us you were back, but... Wow. Seeing it is definitely believing it." She shot Rhodey a private look. "Even with some of the weird things we've seen, this takes the cake."

"Welcome to the land of magic and monsters," Natasha replied, tamping down on the urge to snap at them that she was still herself. She was, but she wasn't. She wasn't exactly the same anymore, and it would be stupid to think that the others wouldn't react to her sudden resurrection from death. Her sacrifice had been needed, but had hurt them all terribly.

That was the thing about having friends and a family. They were strings, finely woven threads that would bind and strangle and confine.

But they could also support and assist, she was finding. That was what she really needed.

Carol and Rhodey exchanged another private look, which irritated Natasha a little. It carried the weight of untold secrets, and right now she felt as if she had none left. It wasn't fair, but she knew how unfair feelings could be; she had used them as weapons often enough before, after all. It stung to feel that turned in her direction.

"Listen..." Carol began, uncertainty in her voice.

"A quiet place," Rhodey interrupted, holding his hand up. "Because this place is full of people with very big mouths. You can talk and I'll go find Tony. That way, I have plausible deniability and you two can claim it's about lady things."

"That's a good idea," Carol agreed, nodding while Natasha only felt even more confused.

But once the two of them were alone in a warded and sensor shielded room, Carol floated off of the floor, her hands glowing a little. "You're not the only one that learned a magic trick," Carol said quietly. "Though mine technically isn't magic. I kind of got the life force of a dying alien."

Natasha sat heavily in a chair. "Sounds like a story."

Carol talked about how Mar-Vell had come to explore, crashed, died and bequeathed his powers to her. "I've been trying to figure out what I can do, since he didn't exactly give me an instruction manual. I have a costume and mask, since everyone has a mask new. I can at least fly away if any authorities come, or anyone angling to be a supervillain."

"There's been more than a few of those," Natasha replied with a sigh. "As well as the garden variety low life thugs on the streets."

"Some of the costumed people have popped up, disappeared, others come and take their place..." She trailed off and sat down next to Natasha. "I'm a pilot. I'm new to this superhero thing, and I don't know how you did it for so long."

"Because I wasn't. A superhero," Natasha clarified at Carol's confused expression. "I wasn't. I'm a spy. I gathered intel, I did hand to hand fighting. I did what I knew how to do. I wasn't any different just because some people decided to call me a hero. That wasn't why I joined the Avengers in the first place."

"Then why did you?"

"Because my best friend had experienced a horrible trauma I would never wish on anybody else," Natasha said quietly. "And there was something I could do to make sure it wouldn't happen again. So I did. I'm not a soldier, I'm not a hero. Something had to be done, and there was no one else there able to do it, so I did."

Taking Natasha's hand, Carol gave her a watery smile. "Natasha, that's what a hero is."

Shocked, Natasha couldn't even think of a reply.

Carol pulled back and pasted a bright smile on her face. "So why don't we figure out a way to use all of our combined powers and skills? That should help us track down and contain the creature that tried to kill you."

"Okay," Natasha began slowly, nodding. It was a better idea than sitting around and feeling sorry for herself.

***

Loki was hiding in his office, surrounded by tomes and scrolls of various kinds. He refused to answer requests from Marissa Tourney or Stephen Strange to discuss magic or how to potentially trap Selene. All he could think of what how Natasha had sacrificed herself for him when their trap failed. There was no way he could put himself through something similar, no matter that he might provoke Hel's wrath. It didn't matter; he would let her shred his soul if Natasha died again, as nothing else would ever be important to him.

He didn't startle when James kicked open the office door and strode inside. "It's time you got out of here. You've even been ignoring Natasha since she came back."

Because he was afraid of what would happen. He was afraid she would hate him; he was the one that had brought her back to the land of the living.

James grabbed Loki by the arm and lifted him up from his cross-legged position on the floor; the metal arm was strong and didn't constrict too hard. Loki was surprised by the concern that James seemed to be showing him. Didn't he hate Loki? Hadn't Loki ruined everything?

"C'mon, she's in a weird place in her head. And she won't say a damn thing, of course, but I can tell she's not good."

"What? How?" Loki asked, stumbling along behind the assassin, confused.

"If she needs me to point out the obvious, then she's not doing good. We need to do something to help get her back to herself. We owe her, Loki. She's done so much for us, we can't let her go on feeling off kilter."

That made sense. That actually made Loki feel better; he had purpose now, a use, something he could do other than mentally scream in frustration because he didn't know how to stop Selene from coming after the realm and its magic.

"Sex might make her feel... awkward," Loki pointed out. "The risk of pregnancy, I mean."

James nodded and looked around the office after letting go of Loki's arm. "We'll need a list, then." At Loki's blank expression, he sighed. "Ideas, Loki. I can remember orders, I can do some things no problem. But as important as this is, I don't want a flashback to fuck it up. So I want to make a list to be sure I remember the ideas we come up with."

The last of Loki's listlessness bled away. James had nothing but good intentions, and he needed orders. Natasha had always provided them before, after all. And that explained why he didn't look on Loki so badly for his behavior during Natasha's death. James had been just as broken, didn't see the use of his body as _ergi_ because he had been following orders. Loki couldn't be _argr_ and couldn't ruin him in that case.

Loki wasn't broken in his eyes. It was heartening, baffling and terrifying all at once.

"There are other ways we can reinforce how necessary she is, or give her pleasure without her worry of pregnancy."

James laughed a little as he picked up a quill and scroll. "Wow, seriously?" He dipped the quill into a bottle of ink and wrote out "condoms" before underlining it, then "other positions." He turned to Loki, who was watching him in amusement. "I think it should be more than sex, though. And not hunting drug dealers in Harlem, even though I did that with her a few times before she died. Too much like work."

"But she enjoys it," Loki pointed out. "Simply playing music she enjoys or cooking her a meal won't be enough to show appreciation for her. It's her mind and soul we must worship as well as her body. To show that we won't play Hel's games or treat her any differently from who she always has been to us."

James suddenly smiled slowly and put down the quill. "Oh. I have an idea. If you don't mind going along with it. Something she said once, a long time ago."

Loki frowned at him. "What?"

"We never had _time,_ you understand. It was rushed and intense and we had to hide our feelings for each other. She's always wanted time to just _be,_ to relax and just be a couple, do all the stupid things that ordinary people took for granted."

Fascinated, Loki stared at him. "But she isn't ordinary."

"For a day, she could be." James grinned at Loki's confusion. "No bullies to take down. No schedule to keep. No training to do. No ordering us around. None of us ordering her around. Just the three of us, giving her a day where she doesn't have to do anything. She could just _be,_ no pressure."

When put that way, Loki could understand the appeal. He nodded and thought for a moment. "Not here or at the apartment in Astoria. It would have to be a completely separate place, so there are no expectations any of us have."

"Brooklyn," James requested immediately. "I grew up there somewhere, when I was the original Bucky Barnes. That should be a homey kinda place, right?"

Loki curled his lips in irritation. "I know little of that place. I didn't know anything of Astoria, either, just its proximity to Manhattan."

"We'll ask Clint or Steve."

"I understand Steve's connection. But Clint?" Loki asked.

"He lived there a while, I think. One of the brownstones in Bed-Stuy."

Though Loki was reluctant to ask Clint for any kind of help, James didn't have that difficulty at all. Clint wasn't terribly surprised by James wanting a separate place for Natasha to spend time in, away from the pressures she felt in the Tower. Thinking about it for a moment, Clint led the two of them to his suite and dug around in a drawer for a key ring. He tossed it at James, who caught it easily. "I actually own a building. Kinda was an accident, buying it, but the landlord was a douche that was strongarming the residents. It's 350 Quincy Street, apartment H. It's between Tompkins Avenue and Marcy Avenue, the 300-400 block. Careful, it's a one-way street and parking's tight if you're driving."

"We're not going to bust up the place, if you were worried about it," James assured him, pocketing the keys.

"I haven't been there in years, not since moving here. So it's probably dusty as hell," Clint said with a shrug. "Wanna feel normal? Clean it out. That's something an ordinary schmuck would do on a weekend off of work."

James grinned, even though Loki hardly thought that sounded like fun. "Perfect."

***

Natasha had been irritated by the utter secrecy with which James and Loki had her cancel plans to meet with Melinda, Jemma and Skye. Not that she didn't trust Dr. Calderon, because she absolutely did, but because they had access to SHIELD research that might not have been on the mainframes that Tony had hacked. They readily agreed to meet with her the next day. "Believe me, I understand you're going through a lot. Coming back from the dead is a tricky business," Melinda had deadpanned. At the same time, she had been utterly serious, having gone through it with Phil Coulson. "I'd say take your time, but sometimes time is of the essence to figure out what exactly happened."

"The Queen of the dead decided to give me the gift of life," Natasha had replied. "I don't think it's too hard to figure out what happened. My biomarkers match SHIELD specs, my imaging scans match exactly. Well, other than one detail, but she did that on purpose."

"There's a story there," Melinda had said in neutral tones.

"When isn't there?" Natasha had sighed.

"Should I bring vodka or ice cream?"

"Bring both," Natasha decided after a moment.

"In that case, I'll bring kahlua and make mudslides," she replied, a warm and sympathetic note to her voice. "You're among friends. Tell us what you can."

The words had almost been enough to bring tears to Natasha's eyes. "I will, I promise."

Loki created a portal from her suite at Avengers Tower to their final location, though she was blindfolded and had to hold James' hand. There was a thread of unease at not knowing where she was, but she knew neither man would harm her or allow her to come to harm. She could feel the difference in the flooring as she passed through the portal, and taking a deep breath made her sneeze on the dusty air.

James removed the blindfold, and Natasha immediately recognized her surroundings. "This is Clint's old place."

"Today, you are an ordinary woman in a regular apartment," Loki declared. He motioned with his hands, and two boxes of cleaning supplies appeared in the apartment, as well as a cardboard box with six longnecks and a pizza carton. "This is traditional, from what I understand."

Natasha covered her face with her hands for a moment as she tried to contain her incredulous laughter, but it came through anyway. "You two are utter idiots."

"From you, that's a term of affection," James pointed out.

"I do _not_ feel like cleaning out this pigsty of an apartment."

"Thank the Tree," Loki breathed. He started chanting a complicated sounding spell, and then the cleaning supplies began to move on their own. "There. You can enjoy the fruits of their labors, at least," he offered.

She lifted the lid of the pizza box and took in the sausage and pepperoni pizza. "There's a park two blocks from here. Let the spell do its job, and we'll have pizza in the park. Open containers of alcohol are illegal, but I'm sure you can make that look like a six pack of Coke."

Loki grinned at her suggestion. "Breaking the law? When you uphold it so regularly?"

"Eh, it's a minor one," she shrugged, though she answered his grin. "That won't hurt anybody."

"It's not like the beer is going to make any of us drunk," James said, sliding an arm around Natasha's waist as he moved out of the way of the animated Swiffer.

"Time to move, before the stuff wants to clean up the rest of us, too."

Herbert Von King Park had an amphitheater, auditorium and dance studio as part of the rec center, as well as the standard facilities for a large New York City park. There were usually activities and events hosted in the area, especially in summer, but it was a quiet weekday in the fall. Kids were back in school, so the majority of the people in the park enjoying the weather were the elderly and stay at home moms with their charges.

Bypassing the chess tables, Natasha decided she wanted to sit in the middle of one of the children's jungle gyms. The pizza box was positioned between the three of them, and she snagged the first slice and first bottle of beer. For a while, they all ate in silence. It took a while, and she realized that Loki wasn't even using any glamour. "Deciding to be yourself today?" she asked, curious. He had left his hair long and loose, falling around his face and neck in soft waves. He wore jeans and a plain green T shirt, dressing casually the way James and Natasha did, and didn't even seem uncomfortable by that.

"There are worse things to be," he said with a shrug, drinking his own beer.

"Weather's good," James said, sounding almost awkward.

"You did not have me cancel a day with Melinda to comment about the weather," Natasha said, an accusing note in her voice.

"No pressure on you," James replied, reaching out with his left hand. He was wearing the skin colored fabric covering that Tony had designed, allowing it to appear like an ordinary arm at a distance. "Just... Being. Relaxing. Not thinking. Not having to fit any role someone wants for you. Unless you want it."

Her expression softened, and she leaned forward to kiss his cheek. "You're such a sap," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, well, Loki helped," James pointed out. "So he's a sap, too."

Loki's lips quirked at her startled expression. "I believe I once called it base sentimentality."

"Yes, you did."

"Which it is. But that doesn't make it any less longed for, does it?"

Natasha rolled her eyes at him, and wasn't surprised to see the slight curve of his lips turn into a full smile. "I suppose not."

"So today is to do with as you will. To be everything or nothing, as your whim decides."

"Why Clint's apartment?" she asked, though she could guess their intent.

"It has nothing to do with our deal," Loki said quietly. "Or any role you would assume for James while there. But we also needed a location where you would feel safe and protected enough to not have need of masks or vigilance."

Nodding, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "So how long will your spell play Sorcerer's Apprentice in there?"

"Possibly not too much longer," Loki said with a shrug. He made the nearly empty pizza box disappear into a trash bin as soon as James took the last slice. "What's your pleasure, Natasha?"

She smiled sensuously. "Exactly that, if you can manage it."

Of course they could.

The walk back was faster than the ambling pace they had taken to the park, and Natasha was quietly amused at the way James impatiently fumbled the keys into the lock at the front door of the brownstone, then at apartment H. Loki was correct, the apartment was clean and the animated cleaning products were nowhere to be seen. It was the three of them in the apartment, cleaned out and empty, air no longer stale. A light shimmer seemed to be overlaid on the walls, and her arch look at Loki made him grin. "Silencing spells, of course."

Natasha snorted and grabbed the remote from the coffee before plopping down heavily on the couch. "Getting ahead of yourself there, aren't you?"

"You prefer if we're prepared, of course," James said, coming to sit beside her. He pulled off the fabric sleeve from his arm and slung it around her shoulders.

"After a breakfast of pizza and beer, I have zero plans for today," she commented, hitting the button to turn on the TV. However, there was no cable input, and she snorted. "So much for seeing what idiocy is on daytime TV. I suppose I should be glad the electricity's even on," she added, turning it off. Leaning into James' embrace, she turned to look at Loki, who was standing near the couch, looking uncertain. "So what were your plans?"

"Whatever you wanted to do. No pressure."

"Really?" she asked, clearly still not believing him.

"Really. You are not a domme today, not subservient. You are not anything you don't wish to be," Loki said, finally sitting beside her on the couch. "If you wish to do nothing more than take a nap, we'll still be here."

Thinking about it for a moment, Natasha contemplated the options. Clint hadn't really been in the apartment in years, so there were really no options for food or entertainment, unless she wanted to dig out his hidden weapons and toss them around. But she could do that anytime at the Tower, which would have been better with the range. Walks in the park again or trying to go to one of the local theaters to see a movie would work, too, or spending time on Atlantic Avenue going shopping in the bigger stores.

That seemed like far too much effort, even if she was left feeling restless. She had lots of time, plenty of things she _could_ do, but nothing she _had_ to do. In the Tower, she would putter about online, reading, working out or practicing skills on the range. If today was meant to be a lazy day, none of those activities would qualify.

"I suppose you'll have to entertain me somehow," she said, adding a sultry smile and purr to her voice. "That _is_ why we walked back here, right?" James subtly shifted to full attention at her side, and Loki's expression brightened fractionally. They were both so painfully transparent, and it was endearing how much they cared for her and her state of mind.

Loki's hands immediately went to the waistband of her jeans. When she lofted an eyebrow as unspoken command to continue, he did so, dragging them and her panties down to her ankles, not even bothering to take off her shoes or socks. Natasha laughed at his rapt expression, but that changed to a gasp as James started to nuzzle her neck and cupped her breasts over her T shirt and bra. Loki frogged her knees out and ducked between them, then leaned down to fasten his mouth over the juncture of her thighs.

He was good at licking into her, nuzzling her clit and sucking gently on it until her body tightened with need. She grasped his head with one hand, keeping him in place, murmuring just how good his tongue on her felt. At the same time, she reached back with her other to grasp James' shoulder, leaning her head back against his chest as he kneaded her breasts and abraded the nipples through fabric. He murmured how beautiful she was, how wonderful she was, how much he loved her, how much she deserved to be happy—

The first orgasm, when it finally hit, was a flood of warmth through her limbs. James kept up his steady movement, flicking his tongue against her ear. Loki made no indication of stopping, as if he had cast a spell to keep his jaw and tongue from getting tired. Smart man. In fact, he kept his tongue right on her clit, barely dipping down to her slit, but curling it inside her whenever he did, as far as he could reach. Loki's hands kept her hips steady and not rolling too much, and he didn't do more than grunt when her booted feet slid down his back.

When she was coming down from her second orgasm, Loki sat back a little. He couldn't go too far, caught by the jeans he hadn't bothered to get rid of, and stared at her intently. "I ache for you, Natasha. But—"

"I thought ahead. Just in case," James announced, nodding toward a plastic bag in the corner Natasha hadn't noticed. He let his flesh and blood hand trail down from her breast to the juncture of her thighs, and ran his fingers along her folds until he found her clit. "You first," he said, and made a triumphant noise when Natasha moaned and arched her back. "I can wait."

Loki had to lift her legs and duck under them to get to the bag James had tossed aside earlier. Two boxes of condoms and a wide tube of generic lube were inside. James laughed at his expression, and nipped Natasha's ear. "What? Natasha likes sex. I figured we should be prepared for whatever kind she wanted."

"And right now, I really want one of you to fuck me. Or both," Natasha moaned, twisting beneath James' hands. "Not picky."

"Both is good," James purred. "At once, or just one at a time?"

"Don't care, just wanna come right now," she whined. It was a tone that would have sent her cringing even months ago, but there was no point to that now. Neither man would think less of her in this situation. No one was going to think her weak. No one would punish her for even the appearance of weakness.

And dammit, she had _died_ to save everyone. She could have something nice for a change.

Natasha laughed as Loki hurriedly undressed, then awkwardly pulled out a foil package. The expression on his face was comical as he tried to figure out how condoms worked. "I know, I know, I shouldn't laugh, they don't have those in Asgard. C'mere," she said, arching against James' hands as her breath caught. "Let me."

He gave her the packet and stepped between her spread legs. James didn't stop moving his fingers or licking her earlobe, making Natasha nearly rip through the condom during a shiver of pleasure. "Not helping," she gasped, unable to make it sound very stern.

James laughed, proving he wasn't concerned at all. "Oh, I can feel how tense you're getting. This is definitely helping."

Loki glared at him. "This isn't helping _me."_

"She didn't specify," James replied airily, laughing at his disgruntled expression.

Loki's retort went unsaid when Natasha rolled the condom onto him and tugged at his hip. He let her guide his sheathed cock to her entrance, bracing himself by grasping the back of the couch on either side of James and Natasha. She grinned up at him, rewarding him for this, even if this wasn't necessarily about rewards. It was almost ingrained in her reactions to him by now. His rapt expression didn't change, and he looked a little startled at the change in sensation as he slid deeply inside of her. She kept the grin on her face even as James' clever fingers sped up, just as she liked it, and she bucked a little as she approached another orgasm. "That feels good," she moaned, arching her back. James pinched her nipple, making her squeak in pleasure. Loki hissed when she tightened her entire body, then slammed hard into her. Natasha groaned, enjoying the feel of that, and licked her lips as she gazed up at him. "Do it like that."

Only too ready to comply, Loki did just that. His eyes never strayed from hers, and he moved at that same rapid pace. Likely magic, if Natasha had to guess, but she didn't care at the moment. He was thick and full inside her, James' fingers kept up the perfect rhythm against her clit and nipple. She groaned and came again, clenching down even tighter around Loki's cock. He obviously felt it, based on the stutter in his rhythm, but it didn't seem enough to make him come. He kept going, biting his lip to keep from crying out. Suddenly wanting to hear him, Natasha reached up from his hips and scratched at his chest. "C'mon, I like hearing you, too."

The admission startled Loki, and he let out a yelp as she scratched at a flat nipple. "If I... I have to hold on," he gasped.

"No, you don't," Natasha told him, squeezing tighter. Huh. He must not have used magic to stay erect after all. She had three orgasms already, she could afford to be generous. Especially since James hadn't gotten any play yet at all. "We have all day, right?"

Loki made a strangled noise as he nodded, and his hips jerked again. He threw his head back, and she could tell he was coming this time. Moving James hand away from her clit, she pulled in Loki for a kiss. "Hey," she murmured, taking in his glazed eyes and slackening limbs. "You'll need to clean up."

He groaned. "I don't want to move."

"At least you can cheat and use magic. I wouldn't be able to," James pointed out. He shifted his hands to pull up her T shirt so he could skim his fingertips across her skin. "We've always had to rush. It's been intense." He nipped at her earlobe. "But I want to take my time today. Because we can. Because there's nowhere else to be."

"I like the sound of that," Natasha murmured, breath hitching as James brought his fingers to touch the edge of her bra. "Is that all you're gonna do? Just tease me?"

"Long past time to start doin' that, isn't it?" he asked, amused.

"I would've thought you'd want to get inside me," she moaned, pushing at his hands. She couldn't see his expression, but Loki looked very amused by that.

"Oh, maybe later," James murmured, a smile in his voice.

James did nothing more than stroke her skin gently, random patterns made up of Roman and Cyrillic letters or shapes, nothing that actually spelled out words. It was for the sensory input, whorls and lines to sink Natasha inside her skin, keep her guessing where on her body James would touch next. Even when Loki finally took off her boots, socks and jeans as James stroked her stomach and thighs, he didn't pick the same place twice to use a pattern. He eventually shifted her onto her stomach on the couch, then trailed his fingers along her back and buttocks, then the backs of her thighs in the same manner.

Natasha hummed happily, shifting her arms under her head and letting herself drift as James stroked her skin, then leaned down and brushed his lips or tongue at random intervals. The high she had been driven toward before had fallen, and this was more of a slow, background burn. This was pleasant, building up bit by bit, the anticipation making her draw in deep breaths more than a spike of heat low in her belly.

He pushed her shirt up over her back and unhooked her bra deftly. Loki perched on the edge of the couch, still naked, and helped drag her shirt up to her shoulders. His own fingers combed through the loose waves of her hair, brushing against her scalp. "You, too?" she murmured, not bothering to open her eyes.

"His turn to play," Loki murmured. "If this makes him happy..."

She could feel his shrug in the way the pressure from his fingers shifted. He stroked her head, neck and earlobes as James ran his lower lip along the line of her spine. It felt almost like sigils, runes to etch into her body, protection and wards and promises he would try to keep with the last of his breath. Though James held no magic, there was his breath and skin and metal arm making promises just as sincere.

This wasn't the sharp edge of desire that had always characterized how she had coupled with James. Even their lovemaking had the frenzied edge to it, as if they had to make every last moment count, as if it could be their last. This time, he moved as if he had an eternity or two to cherish her, as if time held no meaning, as if Loki had cast his spells to stop time for all of New York to allow them a measure of peace.

When James finally moved his lips down toward the curve of her ass, his hands at her hips to tilt them up high enough she could get her knees beneath her, Natasha wanted to say _Finally!_ But at the same time, the warm hum inside her body felt as though she had swallowed the sun, a languorous heat that was as magnificent as it was unfamiliar. His tongue traveled along the curve of skin, savoring her flesh, fingers ghosting over her rear entrance before dipping inside her wet slit. She wasn't sopping wet, but her body eagerly accepted his fingers scissoring inside, a throaty moan escaping her.

The sound of the foil packet ripping open was a welcome one, and she didn't even sigh in disappointment when James withdrew his fingers. He pushed his cock inside her, a slight drag indicating the condom was in place.

But instead of the frenzied pace she was expecting, he went slow and steady, hands roaming from her hips to her back to her thighs. He made a low humming sound, then began to murmur in Russian how his dreams used to be of her when he was on ice. _I wanted to touch you, make you burn. Not the fire we had to steal, not like that. Slow burn, a fire on a winter's night, the kind to take away the chill. The warmth of mulled wine. I wanted to spill it over your body, lick up the rivers it made, make you sway as we danced,_ he said, phrases punctuated by the slide of his cock inside her, his fingers making sweeping strokes along her back.

Natasha turned her head, smile lazy and adoring at once. "Let's do that," she replied in English. "Let's make a wonderful mess of things."

"Anything you want," James promised. He grinned at her, eyes crinkling with his obvious joy, keeping at his sedate pace for a bit longer. Though it wasn't the hard and hurried rhythm she associated with James, the heat inside her spread to her fingers and toes, making her arch and press into Loki's hands, making her hum as James had.

"Ah, my love, I want _this._ Like this."

"Slow?" he teased, adding a few extra thrusts just to throw her off.

She actually giggled and moved an arm to swat at him. "No. I mean... no rush unless we want to, not because we have to. I guess we didn't think about it."

"Nothing wrong with fast," James murmured, still smiling down at her. He sped up to prove the point, making her gasp in pleasure. "It's got its uses."

"I happen to like fast," Loki commented, pushing her hair away from her temples when she turned to look at him. "I like when you lose control," he admitted. "You don't do it often enough, and I think you need to."

She didn't disagree with him, not when she had been too tightly wound before and after her death, too busy weighing consequences of events, planning moves a dozen steps ahead. It had helped her live, right up until the point it hadn't anymore.

Natasha let her hand slide between her legs to stroke her clit. James only laughed at her, calling her impatient, and picked up his pace until she groaned and said "Like this." He obliged, and his laughter turned into choked moans and grunts when she rubbed her clit faster and faster, chasing her pleasure, tightening. Not thinking of anything but how it all felt, she tumbled down into it, the release making her sag further into the couch. James stopped holding back, and then his hips snapped forward, rapid and almost skating along the edge of painful where his hipbones hit her ass. She clenched down tight around his cock, hoping he could feel it through the latex. He must have, because it didn't take him long to finish with a grunt.

It was a surprise to see that it was lunchtime at that point. "I'm hungry," she purred, stretching and tossing her T shirt and bra aside as she sat up. "But not for food."

Twin wolfish grins greeted that statement. Oh, yes, there was something to this idea of theirs, and there was the entire rest of the day to explore it.

***  
***


	5. Introspection

Shiva Dasque had her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, tight corkscrew curls barely tamed. Her wide brown eyes were perpetually kind, and if she wanted to really distract herself, Natasha could create patterns out of the freckles on her pale skin. Shiva was average height, and she wore business casual dress as if was a second skin. The only touches a little less businesslike on Shiva were the chunky black boots with chains that were better served on a motorcycle and earrings that dangled down to her shoulders that looked more like lockpicks.

Then again, being a therapist for the Avengers meant that Shiva had to be a little off book.

She had a notepad and pen to take her process notes the old fashioned way, rather than use electronic records or taping sessions. Natasha appreciated that; she understood Shiva needed to keep track of things, but was more comfortable with fewer permanent and easily disseminated means to do so.

Natasha sat across from Shiva, not sure where to start. In the past, she would start with a memory of the Red Room, then would discuss that. But now, she knew that talking about the Red Room avoided the real reason she needed to see Shiva, even if it had been important for her to understand Natasha's past and the inconsolable guilt.

"You're having more trouble than usual starting," Shiva commented.

Nodding, Natasha sighed. "Going over my past with you, processing all that... It doesn't feel important anymore."

"But you're here with me again. So _something_ troubles you. _Something_ is important enough to discuss."

She was clever enough to run circles around Shiva if she really wanted to. But the point of this was to heal, to trust, to finally stop feeling like every given moment was bleeding out of her. She had liked not having to worry about every move and countermove, and Shiva held her confidence well. Natasha had to begin somewhere.

"I was dead," she began haltingly.

Shiva nodded. "I had gone to your funeral."

That disconcerted Natasha, and she couldn't explain why.

"Was it horrible, being dead?" Shiva asked gently when Natasha couldn't speak.

Shaking her head, Natasha swallowed her unease. "It's more like a dream I had. Hel had Yelena keep me occupied, and she was... It was a dream. Everything was nice, it wasn't painful, and I can remember something good about Yelena. I can think of her without regret."

"But?"

Natasha wrapped her arms around herself. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Here, she could be vulnerable. She could feel or not feel, and Shiva would judge. _Shouldn't_ judge, at least, but Shiva seemed a worthy part of her profession.

"What was the point?" she asked finally, hurt in her tone. "I gave myself in the ultimate sacrifice. I did everything I could to help, to make up for the evils I've done. And for what? People are still dying. Selene is still trying to destroy magic on this realm. There are still people hurting each other. How much difference can I even make?"

"It could be said you've made a world of difference."

"Lying and killing in the service of liars and killers."

Shiva cocked her head to the side. "Those don't feel like your words," she observed.

Sitting still, Natasha wracked her memory. "Loki said them, just before the Battle of New York."

"And of all the things to remember, you remember those words. Loki has said quite a lot since then, of course."

"Well, I _am_ a liar and killer."

"Not in here, you're not. In here, you're my client."

"I don't like that term."

"Do you like patient better? There's been movement away from that term."

"I don't like that, either. It's like there's something else wrong with me. I can't feel, I can't love, I can't do what's outside my programming—"

"But you do," Shiva interrupted. "Your programming says no emotional attachments. No friends, no lovers, no concern for others. Your programming was broken years ago." She tilted her head to the side as Natasha gripped her arms even tighter, expression neutral. "Why is it easier to fall on that as an excuse?"

"It's not. It's not an excuse. It's there. Not broken, not removed. It's something I have to fight all the time. I self monitor all the time, have to check I'm doing things the right way—"

"And you don't think that's a normal response to trauma?"

Natasha looked up at her, stricken. "But—"

"Checking what's normal or not? A trigger or not? Feeling that vague sense along your spine that something is wrong..."

"But it is! I was brought back in a new body almost exactly like my old one. The old one is still rotting in a grave, and here I am, alive again, just a bit extra..."

"Extra?"

"I'm not sterile anymore."

"Is that an issue for you?"

"I don't know. Loki saw a version of reality where we had a child. Where we were happy together. Married."

"Is he pressuring you to recreate that reality?"

"No, but I know it's there now. I know family is important to him. He'll need this..."

"But did he ask for that?"

"No," Natasha admitted. "I'm the one feeling almost obligated now."

"Why is that?"

Natasha sighed and unwrapped her arms. "Because..." She sighed again. "It's stupid, but if they could be happy, then maybe I could be."

"A baby doesn't magically make everything okay. Couples have children because they want to. If it's out of obligation, everyone loses."

She covered her face in her hands. "I know that in a logical sense, but..."

"Options are scary."

"Scary?" Natasha asked mirthlessly. "Shiva, they're fucking terrifying. That's the horror of the Red Room. For all that they were sadistic bastards, they made all the decisions. There were no options but theirs, no room to feel self doubt. There's comfort in that loss of control."

"But at the same time, you hate that."

"Yes, I do. I _need_ control."

"And love is nothing but lack of control."

"It isn't with James," Natasha disagreed.

"It is with Loki," Shiva pointed out.

Natasha froze. "I don't. I own him. I control him."

Shiva looked very patient and almost pitying. "Natasha. You love him. And that's okay."

She pressed her lips together. "No, that's not okay."

"Because he's a murderer?"

"If that was the reason, I'd be a hypocrite," Natasha snapped, rolling her eyes.

"So then what is it? I don't understand."

"I can't be 'on' all the time. I can't be on display, and that's what he wants."

"He's _never_ done anything kind for you? Just when you needed it?"

She flushed, thinking of when Loki dominated her, driving out the despair and recriminations after Yelena's death. She thought of how patient and kind he had been in Clint's apartment, never once demanding anything. "He has," she murmured reluctantly. "Recently, when I needed it. When I didn't realize I needed it."

"Isn't that what love is? Being there when the other one needs you? Anticipating what the other needs? Affection, caring, maybe the physical action?"

"It's not that simple. That's the child's version of love."

"Children know what love is. They know when it's unconditional, when it's real, when it's true. It's not just adults that know what love is."

"Life is more complicated than that."

"Love doesn't have to be."

"That's naïve," Natasha huffed.

Shiva shook her head. "Love isn't. It simply is. Circumstances can be complicated, can prevent you from acting on it, from wanting to feel it. But I'm talking about just the emotion. _That_ can be there. _That's_ what I'm talking about."

Natasha let out a breath. "I can't do the rest of it. I can't let myself get tangled up in it."

"And maybe it's time you explored why." She gave Natasha a mirthless smile. "You can't avoid it forever. Things are getting complicated, aren't they? And you're doing everyone a disservice, _including yourself,_ if you ignore it. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. The problems are still there, growing while you're not looking."

"I don't know where to begin," she admitted. "I know how to manipulate others, use them, destroy them if I must. It's easy with James. We're the same, broken and fitting together. He knows what I mean immediately."

"More like he doesn't question you. The challenge with him is different. It's a safe one, one you can handle. But Loki is an edged thing. He's live bomb, and you have to _work_ at it. That's fine in short bursts, but it's exhausting."

"Yes, that's it exactly."

"And you're the same way."

Natasha opened her mouth, then closed it. "Oh."

"Different facets reflect back at you," Shiva observed. "They're different parts of you, different selves you've tried to keep separate within yourself. What happens if you bring them together?"

"I don't know."

"And I wonder if that scares you, too."

Natasha kept silent. It did.

Shiva put aside her pad and leaned forward a bit. "Think about it, Natasha. Not too hard, there's still a world to save. But think about what _you_ want in it. What are you saving it for? Not for their sakes, but for yours. What do _you_ want? For _you,_ not for them, not for a ledger, not out of obligation. Pure selfishness, if you will."

Even Hel had to push her to choose what _she_ wanted, and not simply accept the handouts she was given. "It's hard to do that," she admitted.

Smiling a little, Shiva stood. "I know. That's why it's homework. Let's see how much progress you make by next week, okay?"

"That's a tall order for one week," Natasha said wryly.

"Of course it is. I don't pretend it's easy. But if you can recognize _why_ it's so hard for you, then we can work with that, too." She opened the door and smiled warmly. "See you next week, Natasha."

Feeling at once anxious and lighter, Natasha stood and nodded. "Yes. Next week."

***

In between strategizing with Carol, Rhodey, Tony, Thor, Sif, Steve, Clint, James and Loki, Natasha pulled the archive records of her funeral and watched the footage dispassionately. It had been a major news item, though none of the outlets had been informed _why_ she had died or how. There were even interviews with some of the Avengers, some SHIELD agents she had worked with, a few city officials she hadn't terrorized. Natasha froze in place when she saw Gina come to the screen. Had they combed the streets looking for people to comment on her death, or had Gina stepped forward to specifically speak about it?

"She helped me," Gina said, expression intent as she looked at the reporter. "She didn't have to, not with what was goin' on, but she got me out of a bad place. Hooked me up with a place to stay the night, some food and money to get me goin' again. I could keep my job, I could find a better place, one that was safe. She didn't have to do that, could've gone on her way and done her business, but she stopped and considered my safety. _She kept me safe,_ and she treated me like a person. That's the difference, you know. Some of them heroes that run 'round, they don't treat you like people. She did. So I gotta do the same someday."

It was like Jane and Darcy and Clint kept trying to tell her over and over again. She was considered a hero. She was one of the good guys. She had definitely moved beyond her former ledger, and she was her own woman now.

Feeling restless, Natasha descended to the medical floors and looked for Shiva. The therapist was in dress pants and a red button down blouse, kneeling on the floor in the suite beside her office, all the components to a shelving unit around her. It was half completed, and she startled at Natasha's arrival. The hammer in her hand hit her left thumb, and Shiva let out a started "Goddamn motherfuck!" of pain as she dropped it and cradled her left hand.

Natasha winced, covering her surprise at the profanity. Shiva had seemed to be so calm and collected in sessions, after all. "Sorry I distracted you."

"That's what I get for having my back to the door," Shiva replied ruefully. She shifted to sit down on the floor. "How can I help you?"

"I suppose this is a bad time to ask about scheduling another session?" Natasha asked, lips quirked into a smile. She hadn't intentionally set out to ask this, but it felt right once she did.

Shiva snorted. "This is my day off, so it's not going to be today."

"But you're dressed for the office," Natasha replied.

"This is actually really comfortable," Shiva said, shaking her head. "Though the jeans would probably hold up better for kneeling on the floor."

"I could help you," Natasha offered, a spike of awkwardness filling her.

"Something's on your mind," Shiva commented with a slight shake of her head. She shook out her left hand again, but made no move to get up yet.

"I'm no good at idleness. It was trained out of me."

"Yeah, well, idle hands do the devil's work, right?" Shiva asked with an almost flippant tone. It felt almost forced, and Natasha stared at her. Shiva shrugged and looked at the bookshelf she had been assembling. "I can't talk. I don't do idle well, either."

This was Shiva's day off, and she was in the office building something for it. Instead of doing whatever errands she had to do for her own home, she was in the office. There was something about workaholics being attracted to Avengers Tower.

Natasha could find personal information on Shiva, could find out why she wore biker's boots and lock pick earrings, why she was handy with a hammer and builder's tools, why she was drawn to psychology and not some other field. But at the same time, the invasion of her privacy would likely undermine whatever therapeutic relationship they were meant to have. Natasha knew that at times she crossed boundaries and didn't quite fit in right. She faked it pretty well, and could copy what others did, but the genuineness was sometimes missing, another legacy of the Red Room that she had to learn to deal with.

"I should go, come back during an official time."

"That would be best, yes," Shiva agreed. A gentle boundary setting. Natasha could test it, could demand that she be seen since Shiva was there. But that would break something, wouldn't it? It would put Shiva on the defensive, and she would never wind up getting anything beneficial out of the therapy.

Nodding, Natasha turned to leave the office area. "Sorry I interrupted. I'll see you at our appointment time."

Shiva didn't say anything, only watched her thoughtfully as she left. Now she finally understood how unsettling the silence could be for someone else.

***

"We should talk about the unexpected visit," Shiva began as soon as Natasha sat down, making her grimace. "That bothers you."

"It was an impulse."

"You have them," Shiva commented. "Why treat them as if they're bad things?"

"Because they usually are. They distract from the mission," Natasha replied automatically.

"Hm." Shiva tilted her head to the side. "What happened right before you showed up here?"

Natasha shifted in her seat, contemplating lying. But that would defeat the purpose of this. That wasn't the point of Tony hiring therapists they could trust. That would undermine any healing she could expect from this, any lessening of the nightmares that clouded her dreams. "I was looking at footage of my funeral, and the interviews afterward."

"Ah." Shiva's head straightened, and she nodded. "I can see why that would be troubling."

"Can you?" Natasha replied, a bitter edge to her tone. All her secrets out for others to see, the judgment that they would make heavy on her shoulders; it was worse than when she joined SHIELD, because at least the clearance levels for that had to be damn high. Once she died, any of it could possibly be requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

"The interviews were largely positive. You have impressive skills and you used them to help others. Most of them came forward once they realized who you were. There was a lot of praise and love for you."

"A lot of hate, too. People that said I deserved to die."

"And you agree with them."

"They're not wrong," Natasha replied, eyes sliding away from Shiva's intense gaze. This painful feeling in her chest was exactly why she had avoided SHIELD doctors.

"They're not all right, either," Shiva commented gently. "You don't handle compliments to your character well. To your abilities, yes. To your character, no. Like it's not acceptable to be loved. Though love is an elevated self."

"Sorry, that's bullshit. Where did you get that from? A self help book?" Natasha asked acidly.

"Tea bag paper," Shiva said sweetly. "I was interested to hear what you have to say."

Natasha snorted. "So glad I could be of amusement."

"You deflect. Sarcasm, avoidance, attack," Shiva observed. "And you didn't do the homework."

Freezing in place, Natasha's gaze snapped back to Shiva. "I forgot."

Tony and Pepper had some kind of project they were working on, very hush-hush, though it sometimes needed input from Rhodey and Carol. Carol and Wanda were conferring quite a bit about something, and Wanda was teaming up with Loki, Jane and Bruce regarding the magic sensor project. James was often sparring with Steve and Clint now, and he seemed to have fewer flashbacks while doing it. And there were the meetings between all of them to try to figure out a way to combat Selene without risking her life again or offering up the lives of any magic users they knew. Right now, Carol was offering up her cosmic powers as one of the main avenues to attack Selene when they managed to make her manifest.

"You forgot," Shiva repeated. Though her voice was more or less even, there was also a measure of doubt in it.

"There were meetings. And seeing that footage." Natasha looked away from Shiva. "I put all thoughts about it into a separate compartment after I came to this floor unannounced. So yes, I forgot about the assignment."

"But it troubled you."

"Of course it did. Why else would I try to come down here?"

"Was that your intent? To talk about the footage you saw?"

"I guess it was. I didn't really think about it when I left the room," Natasha admitted after a moment. "I didn't want to talk to the others. They all say 'Of course you're a hero' and 'Of course other people love you' and things like that. They wouldn't understand how I felt."

"Because you don't see yourself as a hero."

"No. Why would I? I do what has to be done, whether I like it or not."

Shiva looked at her steadily. "Because of the past."

"It doesn't feel done. It never feels _done,"_ Natasha said quietly. "It should be. I _died,_ there should be nothing else left to give. But I feel like it was only a pause, that I'm still stuck in the same trap I used to be."

"Trap. Is being surrounded by others a trap."

"It can be," Natasha admitted, looking past Shiva to the wall. It was a fairly nondescript landscape painting, and reminded her of the one in her suite. It was meant to be soothing and look like a personal touch, but had no sense of personality about it.

"You're still ready to run. You're still anticipating something horrible happening. The Red Room is gone. Do you think there's someone else out there that will try to recruit you?"

"I didn't think Yelena would try anything. I didn't think becoming Asgard's Ambassador was going to lead to so much destruction." Natasha pressed her lips together unhappily. _"I didn't think,"_ she said, syllables clipped. "I should have."

"How could you possibly predict any of that happening?"

"I'm supposed to logically extrapolate the next moves of my opponent. I'm supposed to be able to outthink them and get the job done."

"Your job was to be an Ambassador, a SHIELD agent and Avenger at the time. What opponent did you have to outthink?"

 _Myself,_ Natasha almost said, but clamped her lips shut. She was sounding neurotic and possibly psychotic, wasn't she? Because saying this aloud made no sense, but she couldn't help this being her reality.

"This was how I was trained," she said finally. "I tried figuring out who _I_ was, but ultimately, I can't escape how I was trained. I can't stop."

"It's a constant state of threat," Shiva commented. Natasha nodded, making eye contact briefly before looking away. "It's exhausting."

"People are exhausting."

"When you're living in the state you are, even when alone they're still with you. You're still waiting for what they'll do, still judging them. The weight of them, pressing in on your mind. You don't get to relax, Natasha. You don't have time to really figure out what you want."

"It doesn't help that the world is under threat," Natasha replied, eyes snapping back to her. "It doesn't help that if we do nothing, everything dies."

"But you're not the only one able to figure out a way to defeat this. You keep thinking of what you can do on your own. The point of a team is that you don't have to."

"I know that."

"You don't act like you do. You still try to take control. If not in action, then in knowledge and in trying to predict what others will do. What's it like if you don't do that? If you're not in control?"

She thought of the day with Loki and James in Bed-Stuy, of the few times Loki really did act as a dom and took thorough control. "Nothing. I don't think. I just feel."

"And what do you feel?"

_Content. Calm. Settled._

"Natasha?" Shiva asked when Natasha didn't answer right away.

"Like what I should be," Natasha said softly.

"But it's too hard to give up control."

"Because that's what the Red Room wanted. Absolute obedience. Unquestioning loyalty."

"That's not what happened when you weren't in control here, was it?" Shiva asked, brows furrowed in thought. "I don't get that sense of it at all."

"I trust Clint. I don't need to control what he does. I know he'll get the job done. Steve is the same way, Sam, Thor, Bruce, Tony... I know what to expect from them."

"That's different, though, isn't it? Everyone has a role to play. You know what to expect when they all fall into line. But that's not really giving up control. That's just not actively dictating what will happen next."

"Same thing."

"You know it's not."

Natasha pressed her lips together. "I can't fall into old patterns. I can't be who I was before."

"You're not, though. People change, moment to moment, as they learn and incorporate new things into themselves. You can have an awful, terrible past, and still do great things. You can be a role model for others. Look at what you've overcome. Look at everything you've accomplished so far. Not the list of things you would still like to do, but all the things you've _done._ How is that not something to look up to? How is that not worthy?"

"I don't want to second guess myself all the time," she murmured. "But if I don't, I might fall back. The patterns are easy, being a person is hard."

"You're poised for threat."

Considering that, Natasha nodded. "I have to be ready. I have to be prepared."

"And if there is no threat? If there's nothing to prepare for?"

The momentary flare of panic startled Natasha. "But there always is."

"But if there isn't?" Shiva insisted, leaning forward in her chair slightly.

If there wasn't anything to prepare for, who would she be? Without all her covers in place, if there was only that stillness and contentment, what would she do?

 _What do you want, Natasha?_ Hel and Shiva had asked her.

"I liked the quiet," Natasha murmured, looking at Shiva. She felt vulnerable suddenly, in a way she hadn't felt since early on in the Red Room. "Those moments I've had where I didn't have to think or plan or be anyone else. Or anything. I didn't have to fulfill a role or study. When I could just be, and not worry about the consequences of that."

"And who are you when you can just be?" Shiva asked, voice infinitely gentle.

Natasha paused, wondering why she suddenly felt like crying. "Somebody good," she said finally in a small voice. "Somebody worthwhile."

"It's what we all hope for," Shiva told her in that same gentle voice. "We want to be someone worth loving, worth being cherished, especially if we grew up not feeling like we are. There are no expectations. There are no requirements."

"Love is for children," Natasha murmured.

Shiva gave her a small smile. "Yeah. And it's for grown ups, too. It's okay to want it. It's okay to need it. It's okay to have. And most importantly, it's okay to love _yourself."_

Because sometimes she wasn't sure if she could, even now. Sometimes, she still felt consumed by guilt and the need to prove herself worthy of the friendship offered to her. It wasn't all the time anymore, which was progress, but often enough to have her doubting herself. Just enough to make her think she shouldn't want.

"It'll take time, but it's going to be okay," Shiva said. "I'm here to help make sure that it does." She offered up a soft smile. "Even if you don't think you're ready for it. All you really need is a guide to show you the way back to yourself."

***

Shiva's words resonated with Natasha. _All you really need is a guide to show you the way back to yourself._ They echoed in the back of her head as she listened to plans the others made. Wanda would draw in Selene and lock her into the realm, forcing her to physically manifest. While the magic users kept her on Earth, the others would start to attack her until she could be bound.

"You said something," Natasha said suddenly, interrupting the talk to look at Wanda. "The night I died, you said someone married her."

Wanda sputtered, trying to recall exactly what she had said. "I think? I was reading whatever I saw in her _spá,_ I don't remember the words."

"Who was she before all this? Before she started devouring magic in worlds, what was she in the very beginning? And how do we get her back to that point?"

"She always absorbed magic. Even from birth," Wanda said, looking disconcerted. "It killed her mother, the village where she lived..."

"Where was that?" Natasha pressed, not sure why it was important. But things like that were always important in magic, weren't they?

"What are you getting at?" Jane asked, confused by Natasha's sudden interest in the planning.

"She was contained once. Controlled once. Even if she killed her entire village, _someone_ raised her up from birth. Someone kept her from destroying the universe. Someone taught her how to control her appetite."

"Oh," Wanda murmured, just as Jane said "I see."

"Karnilla was one of the greatest mages on Asgard," Loki said quietly. "She has been dead a long time, and she never wrote about such things. Other mages have not been able to detect her presence. Even the oldest tomes that Dr. Strange obtained barely mention her." He shook his head. "Even if someone was able to teach her in a controlled manner, there is no way to track down who it was. That's been lost to time." He took an unsteady breath. "There is walking the length of Yggdrasil backward, to try to reach her origins. It's been done before, most recently by Amora the Enchantress."

Everyone grimaced, and Bruce commented "Probably not a good idea, Loki. She made your crazy look downright tame."

"But there should be a way to undo everything she's done," Natasha said. "I might not know how to do it, but there's got to be a way that will unravel everything. Then all we have to do is bring her to Helheim."

"All we have to do," Loki scoffed, looking ill at ease.

"If I unravel her _spá,_ maybe," Wanda suggested. "Turn her back into what she used to be, before she got all—" She waggled her fingers and pulled a face indicating her distaste and fear.

"Then that's what we do. Trap her here, pin her down, unravel her abilities and then serve up her heart to Hel on a silver platter," Bruce declared. He grimaced, as if realizing how ruthless that sounded coming from him. "I hate to say it, but that's the way it's sounding."

"That is kind of what we're talking about," Wanda admitted. "One life instead of billions."

"She'd kill you without a second thought," Loki pointed out.

Natasha thought of the way Selene looked at her, how dispassionate and cold she had been while devouring her life force. That was a way to cope with how she functioned. It was like not thinking where meat on the table came from. Dissociation. It worked wonders in stressful situations, but sooner or later, there was no more room to run from the past.

"She learned to be this way," Natasha said quietly.

"And what?" Loki scoffed, shaking his head. "You think we can have her unlearn it? She seeks power, Natasha. We can't let her have it."

"There are many ways to get to this point, but it all comes down to what she learned. She wants sustenance. She wants to survive. She doesn't know any other way to get it."

"Are you saying we show her another way?" Jane asked, confusion on her features.

"Maybe we can't. I don't know how this would work."

Wanda looked uncertain. "But this can't continue. None of this can." She bit her lip, looking anxious and so very young. "I suppose I could rip apart her _spá,_ but that would be really awful and complicated. The weavings that I saw... Too many patterns for it to be a quick job. I don't think it'll be easy to do."

"Then we get to work and start planning," Jane said in a brisk tone. Then she leaned in and flashed Natasha a quick smile. "It's good to have you back, Natasha. In case you didn't know that. We really missed you."

"It's good to be back," Natasha replied with an answering smile. She even meant it.

The End


End file.
